I have driven plenty of both. Better gas mileage in a standard is negligible. Auto's are more reliable than standards. You have to replace the clutch in a standard far more often than any major repair to an auto. Automatics are better for towing also. Again, clutches burn out. I had a '78 El Camino that had a stick shift. The guy I bought it from thought it would be good to pull his boat with. The clutch was pretty much gone when I got it. I had a Hurst "his'n'her" shifter installed with an automatic trans. It was pretty cool. You could just put it in drive, or move it to another pattern & manually shift when you wanted. You can basically do that on any auto, but this is specifically designed for it. One other thing, standard is not so cool when you live in a hilly city, lots of stop & go traffic or where there are icy roads in the winter. Icy & hilly.... bad, bad.
