Silly us: we’d always been under the impression that deterring car theft required a tricky, clever approach, not to mention hundreds of dollars’ worth of clubs, alarm systems, and other gizmos.
It turns out that a large percentage of the time, simply having a manual transmission-equipped car can work just as well.
Just last Thursday, a would-be carjacker in Seattle, Washington was forced to abort his car-stealing ambitions when he tried to forcibly take a 1998 Ford Mustang in a fast food restaurant parking lot. The Mustang was equipped with a manual transmission, according to Inquisitr.
The story goes that this daft, young, would-be carjacker approached a woman in her ’98 Ford Mustang in the parking lot at night, asking her for directions. After he had her attention, he pulled a gun on the woman, and forced her out of the car. The woman ran inside the fast food establishment to phone the police, while the perpetrator struggled to figure out how to work the Mustang’s manual transmission. He reportedly ground the gears a few times, got the car to roll a few feet, and then ditched the vehicle before police could arrive at the scene.
Don’t get us wrong; there’s still no match for a modern, premium theft-deterrent system, especially those with location tracking and remote deactivation. But in lieu of those things, at the very least, your car’s misunderstood manual transmission might just spare it from the whims of an idiotic car thief.
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