I had an Austin America (1300 with the auto trans) That car was
wonderful _except_ for the trans. I had one trans go bad, and I got
the last new one available on the east coast in about 1977. The
"dealer" was never able to get it adjusted quite right and it slipped
on shifting manually. The car had so little power it was pathetic.
I attributed it to the power losses associated with the automatic
transmission. For reliability and power reasons I would heartily
recommend that you go with the stick shift!!!!! Let your wife learn to
drive a stick on some rental, then let her go to town with a wonderful
austin america with a stick!
-Tony
ARhodes@compuserve.com
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