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I was gonna say, I took a long road trip in a 1971 VW microbus and this was triggering some memories. Especially the description of finding the gears!

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Yes the gears! The amount of "play" in the gearbox was insane. Couple that with the like 3 foot long stick handle and IN GEAR I could wiggle the stick in a like foot wide circle.

Once you had driven it for a while you got to know the "feel" of it and had no problems, but like in the article someone new to driving it would have had a really hard time lol.

My 1985 Jeep CJ-7 is similar... I can be rolling down the road in 3rd gear and the gear knob will occasionally start oscillating in a 4-inch circle all on its own.

Someone new to driving now probably doesn't even know what a gear stick is.

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