I tested a Subaru manual at the dealer a few years back. The exit from the dealership was uphill onto a busy road. So, I stopped and reached for the handbrake.

There was no handbrake.

I managed to work my way back down to the dealership and asked, "Where's the handbrake?"

It turned out that Subaru had decided to replace it with a button and an "automatic" "hill-holder" feature.

Actually you don't need a mental model of the clutch at all for that. You just need to know how to handle steep inclines. There's a technique for that. All you need to know for that is the fact that on a steep incline you will go back a bit until your clutch has a chance to get you moving forward against the hill and that in this case you need to apply that technique. Like knowing when to use rebase, when to use cherry-pick etc. Now why you will roll back on the steep hill is not something a normal operator of a car needs to understand. Neither the clutch part nor the gravity one actually.

Also, if he's literally 3 inches, I would say the best approach is to slowly ease off the brakes until you actually touch the other car but do it so slowly that it's not an impact. All without even pushing the clutch. Then you don't even need to use the brake while pushing the gas pedal trick, because the guy behind you is your brake pedal ;)

They'll go even better for you if you just have good skill with the clutch - regardless of how it works or not.

Agreed, I’ve only recently learned (at a high level) how a clutch works, and it has zero impact on how I use it on the street.

Even off-road, I really only need to know to not ride it all the time.

For a group of people supposedly primarily in the SV area this is a scary comment thread.

I learned to drive stick in the Bay Area and the way everyone I know there drives stick on an incline is to use the parking brake with a second hand when letting off the brake and letting out the clutch.

Now, when you get good you can stop doing this for most, but for really steep streets (I now live in San Diego and we have a couple; Laurel being one) it’s still an excellent skill to have.

You should go drive a bit in (some parts of) Spain! Not sure if something like this exists where you are.

Imagine: Small towns, really narrow one way streets with foot traffic and underground parking. Getting out of some of those underground car parks is scary stuff!

You get onto a steep incline to get out of the car park but you come around a corner onto that. Cars might be coming down towards you at this point and they're sometimes hard to see. It's cramped too. So you can't just take it w/ speed to get up there. Also on the top you have pedestrians on your side, so you might need to stop on the incline, then when pedestrians have scurried away, go a little further but not directly onto the street until you can actually see if cars are coming. Half your car is still on the incline at that point.

I haven't been to Europe but I did live in Japan, which has some... interesting roads.