Plenty of brands stopped offering manual variants of plenty of models. IIRC BMW practically begged people to stop asking for manual variants, saying it just does not make any sense to mess with the supply chain and the production line and the car itself just to put an objectively inferior transmission inside it.
The M series cars still have manual as an option, I think. They’re a bit outside of my price range, so I’m trying to keep my old manual 328 running as long as I can.
They also offer it on the Z4 with the Handschalter package. Pretty sure this will be the last year of the Z4 tho.
i am not ordering cars from them anymore /s
Thank god you put the /s there.
Well then, I’m going to order twice as many cars from them next year as I did last year.
Ok, so they’re performance focused. Who is making cars that are built for the most engaging driving experience? Are those “drive a slow car fast” type cars all already built?
Porsche continues to sell manuals, but alas did do away with it on the upcoming Carrera 992.2 and gts. They have a 40% overall manual sales per this: https://www.motor1.com/news/705017/manual-transmission-sales-2023/
Bmw and others do have high individual model manual take rates (bmw m2/ct5 blackwing e.g. at 60/50% respectively.)
But they’ll always be the less performance option, though more “engagement”.
There is definitely a market for cars that take a loss in performance to give a boost in engagement.
Mazda.
I want my next car to be a Miata.
Caterham
I got my license in the early 80’s, and at that time the cheapest cars were older american beaters with utterly terrible 2 and 3-speed slushbox automatics. The alternative were Japanese cars like Honda Civics, small, reliable, manual transmission cars that got great gas mileage and were way more fun to drive. All these years later I’m still driving a manual, currently a 2021 Toyota Corolla. It’s paid for, it gets around 35 mpg, and with regular maintenance it will run until the end of time.
I know American cars have improved a lot since the malaise era but you generally can’t get them with manual transmissions, so I’ll stick with the imports for now.
I started driving around the same time as you. I remember how common real VW beetles were and I don’t think any of them ever had automatic transmission - if they did I never saw one. I spent a summer driving one with no starter and a broken reverse gear, which meant I had to be very careful about where I parked it. Today’s kids will never know the fun that came from that situation.
Because nobody wants them. Or rather not enough people want them. Hell, kids these days don’t even want to get their drivers licenses. For them Uber is good enough.
Honestly DCTs make up for it, especially when your customer base is mostly people who don’t know how to drive anyway.
Using a manual is easy, but using it to go fast can actually be pretty hard. You have to time everything right, compensate for a bunch of conditions, coax the shifter because its using synchros, feather the clutch accordingly, heel-toe downshift correctly, etc. It’s extremely rewarding and useful if you actually want to have complete control over your car, but I doubt your average rich guy is gonna want to put that much effort into driving.
Manual shifting a modern Lambo would just be such a chore with how fast the RPM changes too (plus the loss of power from clutch would be even more noticeable). Current high end manuals just choose to stay with 6 gears so the gap stays comfortable, but you obviously lose some efficiency.
DCTs will do that all for you, the only thing you lose is a mechanical shifter (which if you’re into manuals you very much miss lol) and the ability to do some clutch tricks (ie loss of some mechanical controls because its automatic).
Now putting a regular old torque converting automatic transmission into a sports car is a waste (and has many examples of such). They are very slow because they aren’t deigned to rapidly change gears like you can in a manual. Even a CVT would be better from a practicality standpoint.
Yeah. You can’t buy a ford or chevy pickup in the united states with a manual transmission anymore.
I know they’re not supercars, or anything like that.
Big trucking companies are all going to automatic transmissions in their trucks as well.
I’m a school bus driver - buses with manual transmissions are long gone. The drug use and child molestation filters weed out enough potential drivers as it is.
High-end has all been sequential for like a decade
Most super-cars are not a sequential. A sequential is usually the type of transmission you find in motorcycles. Most flappy paddle transmissions found in sports cars are either a dual clutch automatic or an automated manual.
Ok that’s the kind I meant, I’d say I’m right of the curve on car knowledge but I don’t like design gearboxes for Ferrari or anything. Genuinely appreciate the correction.
GMA T50 begs to differ.
And recently also top end midrangers for some reason.
So you need to download a pdf?
