Opinion about car purchase sought! (To teach students manual shift driving)

[euromodder]

late 1980s, or 1990s Toyotas or Hondas 5-speed would be fine.
Reliable, easy shifters.
Normal pattern, i.e. no pushing or levers to pull for reverse.

Warm up the engine and transmission before taking on a student.

Start teaching at standstill, engine off, just to give them a solid idea of where the gears are.
No looking at the stick !
They should know what gear it's in by feel alone.

If you want to avoid the problems Metro mentioned : learn them to shift with their fingers on the knob, hand above the stick.
NOT with the palm of the hand resting on the knob, nor with the hand turned vertically and the fingers clamping around the stick.
With a good and warm box, hardly any force is necessary to shift.

Teach them to not really guide the stick themselves.
It knows where to go, it just needs a little nudge in the right direction.

1 to 2 is only some light backward and sideways pressure.
2 to 3 is only some slight forward pressure - the stick will center itself while passing neutral and line up with 3rd gear.
3 to 4 is only some backward pressure.
4 to 5 is forward and some light pressure to the right.

Sounds obvious, but it works way better that trying to follow the shift pattern with decided hand movements.

[Fat Charlie]

Something cheap and underpowered, with as low a first gear as possible. Focus on cheap and underpowered, though.

Your best bet is an almost insultingly simple classroom instruction on "How Disc Brakes Work." Explain how the spinning rotor and the non-spinning pads are gently pressed together until their speeds match. Explain that locking them up and riding them for miles are both bad. Then move on to "Part II: How A Clutch Works" and give the same explanation with the part names changed.

The first stage of driving should be done in their cars and should focus on their use of the brake- rolling aound the lot at idle and stopping. Once they can focus on doing what they need to do while minimizing wear in a car they (hopefully) respect, they can get in your M/T and work on starting up and getting into second. This isn't a road car or a road class, so don't worry about that.

A car for teaching hypermiling doesn't have to be a Metro. I don't think a Metro is even a good car for that because the car does so well on its own. You want to teach them to outperform the car, not drop them into a high performing car and wow them with its numbers.

[larrybuck]

Thanks for the great advice! I do have a pretty good trust factor w Honda's.

My brother's '89 Corolla held up pretty well for him.

An old Datsun B210 would be pretty cheap, but parts may becoming more difficult.

Yes, Toyota Pu's have a tough reputation.

Frank; what I'm up to is the possibility of a part time business..exploratory.
People around here claim to be green, and WA.,and OR. always seem to be in about
4th to 5th place in the nation when it comes to high fuel prices; so I'm hoping
down the road a piece that maybe mutual help might bear some fruit!