I guess I've never paid that much attention to the dashboard on these early-birds.  I always equated the ignition to the left of the steering column with early Falcons.

My 2003 Subaru Baja requires the clutch pedal to be firmly depressed to the floor in order for the starter to engage.  It's kind of a pain, but I'm in the habit of doing that with any manual transmission because it's less work for the starter.  It's just that with the Subaru, you have to almost stand on the pedal or it won't crank -- even though the clutch itself doesn't engage until about the last inch of upward pedal travel, which I've never gotten used to either.

I'm going to sell the Baja because the parking situation is really tight at the new house.  I love its versatility (this past week I hauled a 12' 4 x 4 in it) , and it's a tight and solid car without a single rattle, but I just don't have the room anymore.  The '50 GMC can do the Baja's jobs, but only on a local level, which is fine.

I was talking with a friend yesterday and she said she had read that a recent survey found that only 5% of drivers in the U.S. know how to drive a stick.  Unbelievable!

A friend runs a repair resto shop, and redid a 55 'Bird, in the same turquoise. It was one of the first 100 built, did a beautiful job.

I had a 91 Mercury Capri Convertible and a 96 Toyota Tacoma, both with 5 sp trans.and they both required the clutch to be fully depressed or the starter wouldn’t engage when the key was turned to the start position. I think that this has been a safety requirement since the 80’s.

I'm not entirely sure how much of a requirement this is. My last car was a mid 1990s VW, and while it's been a couple of years since its demise, I'm thinking there was no requirement to have the clutch pushed in. Past, of course, common sense... But it's entirely possible, too, that something broke--plenty of minor stuff was broken on that car when I got it--or the car could have been been modified.

I was talking with a friend yesterday and she said she had read that a recent survey found that only 5% of drivers in the U.S. know how to drive a stick.

I could probably drive a stick...but it's more practical driving a car than a stick! LOL

The last vehicle I owned with a stick was the Tacoma, my left hip started getting bad, and driving home after work in the stop and go 101 traffic was just too much pain for me to tolerate.

The only time I didn't like having a manual was when I sometimes did substitute newspaper delivery around 2000. The route required driving much of it--it was in a semi-rural area. My car then had a clutch that required a degree of force to work, and so my left foot (at the least) always felt the effects after doing the route. It was also plain tiresome doing the stop and go driving, while trying to deal with newspapers.

I only did newspaper delivery occasionally, but I think if I'd done it regularly, I might well have reconsidered my bias against automatic transmissions.

I had a '97 VW Passat GLX that I loved to drive.  It had a stick.  That car didn't need the clutch depressed to start it.  I wonder if it was only certain makes that adopted such a requirement.

To clarify the term further, a "stick" means "four on the floor" (or these days six or more), but (steering) column shift manual transmissions were ubiquitous up until the '70s or so.  They're often referred to as "three on the tree."  They used the same "H" pattern as a stick, but it was mounted sideways and the lever was much smaller.  This is what my '50 GMC has, and youngsters have no idea how to work it.

I agree with Eddie about how easy it is to drive a vintage manual GM transmission.  When I tried to learn on the GMC when I was a kid, I gave up, but once I got the hang of it on my sister's stripped-down '65 Chevy Biscayne with a column shift, driving the Jimmy was completely enjoyable.  It still is.

Here's a stick story for you:

On a trip to Mexico with a friend of mine (who happened to be a Mexican citizen) in 1978, we drove from Acapulco to Ixtapa in a rented VW "Safari" (aka "Thing" here in the U.S.).  About halfway through, the "stick" detached itself.  We took turns driving and would pound on the stick to keep it in place when we needed to shift.  We later encounterd a check-point, as can appear randomly along the Mexican highways, and a group of armed Federales walked up to the car.  We really didn't want to stop because that meant going through the gears again, but we had no choice.  We removed the stick to show them what we were up against -- my friend explained in Spanish.   One of them grabbed a rock and tried to pound it back into place, and gave us the rock to use on the remainder of the trip.  When we got to Ixtapa, we located the car rental agency and walked in with stick in hand.  They gave us another Safari.  The stick stayed put on that one. 

The T-bird in the OP has an automatic transmission.  This floor shift automatic really came into its own on the more sporty cars in the '60s.

The '50 GMC has a separate starter pedal to the right of the gas pedal.  I have to be careful because with size 13 shoes, it's easy to depress the gas along with the starter, which can lead to flooding.  The starter will operate independent of the key.  It truly is an ignition switch and nothing more.  The linked video clip shows the procedure on a Chevy of similar vintage.   It sounds to me like it was upgraded from a 6 volt to a 12 volt system.  The Jimmy is still 6 volt and it doesn't crank anywhere near that fast.

And yeah, no syncromesh on that thing either.

How about those '50s cars from GM that you could start without a key?  It sure was a different world back then.