To Shift or Not To Shift

So the word is that Britney Spears, the modern day marvel of driving has recently purchased a classic Porsche 356 Speedster. This is an older style of Porsche (as you can see from the picture) so as such, there is no automatic transmission. Purists would argue that having a manual transmission on a car such as this is the fun (and I'm inclined to agree) however, as many of today's youth so ably demonstrate, they are unable to drive a manual transmission. Now I can't rant and rave on this completely because when I first got behind the wheel, I was not manually inclined either. I denied myself several years of fun. But through patient guidance from my dad and a couple of jerky jaunts here and there, I finally got the hang of it.

Britney Spears is seen here in her new Speedster with a driving instructor (no Kevin Federline did not shave, get dressed up and get a personality) who appears to be instructing her in the ways of a manual transmission. I can think of worse cars on which to learn to drive a manual but my question is why would you want to learn on a Speedster? The car is at least $70,000 when it is in pristine condition (as this one appears to be) but they are also finely tuned instruments. If you go and grind the gears of break something, it's going to be really really expensive to fix. Now being a multi-millionaire, one would think that Britney would have enough sense to buy something simple like a Geo or even a Civic which she could grind and stall to her heart's content. Why ruin a classic?

Of course I'm applying logic to the situation. This is after all Britney Spears, the girl who drove around town with her baby sitting in her lap. After that outcry she decided to do the right thing and put her baby in a child seat. Of course then the nitpickers out there cried out that she had the kid facing the wrong way. Outcry again! I suppose she has learned her lesson from two bad car related experiences and has decided against further outcry from manual transmission drivers and Porsche fanatics by avoiding unnecessary grinding and stalls by learning from an expert. And will she ever need to master the fine art of letting out the clutch in that car! Especially in California traffic! Oops... I did it again... I stalled out hard.