I'm very impressed with how slick the 6 speed is on my truck. On the subject of girlfriend not driving a stick. This may be cruel but several years back I bought a Honda Civic si with a manual transmission. I showed up at home and called my wife out to see her new car. At this point she had never attempted to use a manual transmission before. She was pretty concerned but I took her out and she picked it up right away as she had to or she couldn't drive. Since then she has become an excellent driver and actually forgets how to use an automatic, always searching for the clutch pedal...lol.