This is the coolest site ever, so much useful information and lots of fun too. What I'm about to say may make some of you cringe. Seeing as I wont be able to take delivery of an RX8 till early spring, thought now would be a good time to learn to drive a stick :o I know, learning to drive on a $40000 car, the horror, the horror.

The truth is, I don't know a whole lot about cars, and the thing that caught my attention about the 8 is, and I'll admit it, the looks. Call me shallow ;) Based on most of the posts I've read here, I definately think stick is the way to go. I've driven automatic all my life, and it would be pretty geeky to get a sports car in auto right?

Well anyway, wanted to know if anyone out there can recommend a good Stick driving school? I'm in the Toronto area, and I've heard a couple of places on the net mention Shifters. I'm guessing I've got around 6 months to learn (sure there will be some winter experience) and I hear it isn't that difficult :p IEverybody had to start somewhere, so... hook a brother up :p

just go for Young Driver's of Canada, my friend. they'll hook ya up.
(yeah, you can sign up for singletons)

How about you buy a $500 manual beater in the meantime and learn on it for the next 6 months? Practice makes perfect.. then you can move onto the finer points of manual like rev matching and heel and toe shfiting. :)

If you already know how to drive, just go out in a parking lot with someone you know that has a manual car, or heck rent one! Well rent one with someone that knows manual (if you can rent manual in Canada) and ask them to show you.

It shouldn't take more than a few hours to "learn" but it will take some practice to get perfect.

The RX8 is pretty easy to drive, although I would suspect a new manual driver would have to rev it a lot to get it going.

I'll teach you how to drive your 6mt Rx-8, as long as I get to have my time with it too.:D

Whatever steps you take to learn stick will certainly help you, but be aware, the rotary is like no other engine out there.

At speeds and RPM's that would get you some wheel hop in a piston will get you a stall in a rotary.

Try jumping over to The RX7 Forum (http://www.rx7club.com) go to the Canada thread and ask some RX-7 owners near you for help on learning to drive stick on a rotary car.

Maybe you can offer to let someone who helps you, drive your 8 in exchange. You might get a trade on that.

good luck