Two US would-be car thieves failed dismally to make off with a Honda Accord after discovering it had a mysterious manual gearbox, RTÉ reports.

Having menaced the owner with a gun outside a pizza restaurant in Georgia, and relieved him of his wallet and car keys, the pair of teen master criminals prepared to make good their escape. However, according to an employee of the pizza outlet, "they could not start it because it had stick shift".

The eyewitness recounted: "The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. He looked dumbfounded. The only thing he had going was the radio."

While dumb and dumber wrestled with the problem of how to drive a car with four on the floor, restaurant staff called the cops who cuffed them as they tried to leg it into nearby woods. ®

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