My first car was a 1981 AMC Gremlin. It had a manual transmission, "three on the tree." I bought it from a former schoolmate, because 1) I needed a car, and 2) I felt like I needed to pay cash for it. And I had the $500 he wanted for it. I had never driven a manual transmission car, and assumed I'd get the hang of it. But I never really did. My brother-in-law and my dad both tried to teach me, but it just didn't seem to sink in. We finally loaded it up with my belongings and my dad helped me drive it to my first teaching job halfway across the state. (And it was a big state.) My mother followed along in their automatic-transmission car, the one I was used to driving. Part way there, I tried to shift down when taking an exit ramp, and I broke something in its innards. We had to take it to a repair shop and were a day late reaching my destination.
I struggled along with that car for about two and a half months. One of the tires kept going flat, so I was always stopping at the local garage for help. I was terrified of driving up a hill, for fear I'd have to stop and wouldn't be able to get going again. I killed the engine regularly. Sometimes I couldn't get it into reverse at all.
Finally, I realized I was getting a monthly paycheck and could afford to make car payments. It was time to replace that old standard shift vehicle with something I could drive with confidence. My dad rode the bus to where I was living and helped me drive my Gremlin back to my hometown, where he and my mom had already done some looking at cars, to save time. I bought a brand new 1981 Dodge Colt, which I absolutely loved, and had for 17 years.