Manual trucks?

Aha! So YOU'RE the guy I see on 81 crawling up the little hills at the breakneck speed of 35mph! I don't have any idea where you're from, but we ain't got time for all that around here!

Ok ok, before you get the harpoon out after me, that was made in jest. Carry on

 

I drove trucks for 40 odd years and never had an auto box, except for about 6 months in the early 70s I think it was. But it wasn't a true auto, only 2 pedals but it did have a lever. If I remember correctly to put it into the next gear you wanted before you needed it and just lifted your right foot for a second to make it change. There were half a dozen of us and we thought it was ok but not special. Then I had an unconnected dispute and moved on.

Many years later I retired and spent some years volunteering in the dog rescue world and then one day someone asked me to deliver a dog across country to an adopter. It suddenly snowballed and I was soon doing 80,000 kms /year all over Europe with my manual car, and a very good one at that, only trouble was if I had to go into large cities such as Paris and London etc and got caught up in heavy stop go traffic I knew that my right shoulder and left knee would soon fail completely under the strain. So I bought a similar model automatic. Heaven, but old habits die hard, most of the time I use the the paddles near the wheel to change up or down manually before the box decides for itself while watching the rev counter for the best fuel saving performance. I am sure that, left entirely to itself it would cost me more in diesel but, while I still avoided cities whenever I could, it wasn't always possible and the benefit of an auto is unsurpassed.

So, if you don't have much heavy traffic work and instead long high speed open roads, it doesn't matter much, but if you are a city boy, auto every time.

 

My drivetrain mechanic LOVES those AUTOS, says he’s never been so busy since he opened shop. That says it all for me.

 

I was looking more for more of verified published proof than just your word

 

unless you owned a LR series II/III, you won't get the joke.