A picture of a VW gear lever

Remember this extraordinary outburst?

you say you weren’t used to the car?LIAR,LIAR,LIAR… As EVERYBODY knows,in a VW,1st and reverse gear are TOTALLY on the opposite side to each other.

*pauses for dramatic echo effect*

Well, helpful reader @pimrie has helpfully taken a photograph of his VW gear lever, and he’s kindly allowed me to share it with you.
Please excuse the fact that his car could probably do with a bit of a clean. That’s not what this is about.

vwrev

No, what this is about is the fact that in this particular VW, 1st and reverse gear are… er… not “TOTALLY on the opposite side to each other”.
Maybe there’s more than one sort of VW gearbox. And evidently, internet commenter and legal threat donor Paul Murray was thinking of the other sort of VW gearbox. Which makes it all the more confusing, because when you’re panicking because several tonnes of angry, infected pachyderm is bearing down on you, you might well forget which sort of VW you’re in and, with that vital information, the layout of the gearbox.

Rule one of posting outraged allegations on the internet, Paul: make sure that you’re actually correct in your outraged allegations.