My girlfriend, 8 months pregnant, is learning how to drive in our
diesel vanagon.  I tell her if she can drive this she can drive
anything.  I think it's a good car to learn in.  The clutch is light,
it has great visibility and a short wheelbase.  It's hard to put it in
reverse.  You can just let the clutch out without worrying about the
gas.  (Even on a hill - I tried it today just to see if it was
possible.)  And you can't exactly learn bad power-related driving
habits.

Geordie.

On 10/11/06, Keith Ovregaard <kovregaard@comcast.net> wrote:

> Tonight my teenage daughter, who now proudly has a learners permit,
> asked to drive my Vanagon. Now let me tell you that she has only a few
> hours of driving around town in a small car with an automatic and only
> twice have I let her drive the syncro. Once in a big parking lot where
> she dumped the clutch/killed engine a bunch of times and nailed a few
> curbs. I was real calm and supportive, by the way. The second time was
> on the beach where she never got out of first, but had a blast cutting
> cookies and bouncing over the small dunes. But tonight, even though I
> was reeeealy not ready for her to drive into traffic with my treasured
> ride, I let her drive. And she did a fine job of shifting even though
> she drove up the the curb only twice! Moral of the story: give the kid
> lots more time behind the wheel of her mom's small car with the
> automatic! And if she crashes it, the car will be lots easier to
> replace.

> PS Thanks Jeff for the great suggestion on how to get the hang of the
> clutch! (no gas and SLOWLY let out the clutch) It worked!