Upper Middle Petrol Head:

Many, many years ago, when UMPH was but a boy, double de-clutching was considered de rigeur for drivers with sporting aspirations (or should that be pretensions ?).  The fact that synchromesh had been well and truly invented decades earlier didn't diminish the allure of blipping the throttle on down-shifts, signalling to anyone within earshot that you really knew your stuff.  Or that's what UMPH thought, anyway.  The fact is that double de-clutching isn't really all that necessary, so long as your car's manual transmission has working synchro.  However, that's not to say that there aren't benefits to the practice and, if you own an earlier classic vehicle, it remains a skill that's pretty much essential if you don't want the ignominy of grating your gears, which will inevitably occur just when your pride and joy's attracted some admirers and you're trying to look nonchalant as you're cruising by. For the uninitiated, double de-clutching