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This past weekend, temperatures in the Boston area topped the 90-degree mark for the first time this year, sending the CarGurus team and thousands of other Bostonians to the area’s many beaches to cool off. While many were stuck searching for parking at the most popular beaches, others were able to simply pull up to the beach, let some air out of the tires, slip their car into 4-wheel drive and find a prime spot right next to the surf—with no one else in sight.

This is the going to the beach that I grew up with and one of the primary reasons that I still have a 4WD pickup. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of changing from pavement to sand. You pull up to the beach, make the change into 4WD, and you’re off. Instead of hearing the tires whining against the pavement, you get the gentle sound of them pushing through the sand, with no more pedestrians and bicyclists to watch out for, just shorebirds, sunbathers and fishermen.

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I remember the first time I drove a car, I was 13, and I spent hours stalling my dad’s 1984 Toyota Pickup. Over and over we drove around in that circle, my dad refusing to give up on me until I could finally master the art of the manual transmission.

Many of us probably have a similar story (okay, most were probably more gifted and were able to learn how to work the clutch in a matter of minutes, not hours), one of trying and failing until that glorious moment when you get enough (but not too much) gas to the engine and take off for that first time in first gear. It’s a story of pain and struggle, but at the same time it intensely bonded you to the person who taught you an essential life skill, and it ended with sheer joy at the point when you finally mastered the stick shift. Sadly, this experience may not be a common one for much longer.

A right of passage for many a teenager, learning how to drive stick is gradually becoming less and less common, as more and more automakers choose to discontinue production of vehicles with manual transmissions. Just this week, we received the heart-wrenching news that Porsche would no longer produce the 911 Turbo with a manual gearbox. This follows in the footsteps of Ferrari and McLaren, who dropped manual transmissions altogether in recent years, along with Mercedes-Benz and Lamborghini, who have already nixed the necessity on their superstars, the SLS AMG and Aventador. If European makers of supercars can no longer produce fun-to-drive cars with stick shifts, who will?

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