An Outlandish Plan to Bring Back the Manual Gearbox

From Road & Track

This past week, I was at an open-lapping day at Thunderhill, in Northern California, and I happened to run into a fellow who, in past years, had been a well-respected racer in a big-bore SCCA National class. He'd run a Corvette back then, so it was no surprise to see that he'd brought a brand-new Corvette Z06 with all the track trimmings to this event. What was a surprise: He'd chosen to buy his new track rat with an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Now, you don't get to the pointy end of an SCCA grid without knowing your way around a clutch pedal, so I didn't figure he was afraid of shifting his new Vette manually. When I asked him why he'd chosen the automatic, he shrugged his shoulders. "It's less hassle, and it's just as quick," he said. "I don't miss shifting it myself." Well, I couldn't really call him a wimp or a wannabe, so I settled for keeping my mouth shut on the matter. Apparently there's at least one bona-fide race driver out there who would rather put it in "D" and forget it, even when he's turning laps in the two-minute range around Thunderhill.

The day after I came home from the track, however, I read that prices of manual-transmission Ferraris were reaching new heights. Clearly there are some contradictory things happening here. On one hand, seasoned racers are buying automatic-transmission track cars, even when they have a choice to get that same car with a manual. On the other hand, stick-shift Ferraris are soaring in price.

It's not just the Ferraris. Have you priced a previous-generation Porsche 911 GT3 lately? Or a GT3 RS? How about the RS 4.0? They're changing hands at nearly half a million dollars a pop. Absolutely insane for a car that probably can't stay within sniffing distance of a no-options current-year 911 GT3. Meanwhile, down here where us regular people live, manual-transmission C4-generation Corvette Grand Sports are still commanding more than half of their MSRP, 22 years after leaving the showroom floor. That's more than twice what PRNDL Vettes from the same year are worth.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you what stick-shift Honda Civics from the 80s and 90s are worth, right? There's clearly real market demand for cars that don't shift themselves, and if we can judge accurately from transaction prices, that demand is climbing. Yet the vast majority of first-rank sports cars available today can't be had with a clutch pedal, and it's virtually impossible to get anything bigger than a Honda Accord without settling for an automatic.

The real question is whether we, the would-be purchasers of manual transmissions, are willing to put our money where our mouth is. I know that I personally am; the vast majority of new cars I've purchased, up to and including a 1997 Land Rover Discover, have been manuals. I specifically bought my Accord Coupe two years ago because I could shift it myself. If Acura came out with a stick-shift TLX-or even, whisper it, a stick-shift RLX-I'd trade in and buy that.

Insofar as the "standard" transmission is no longer standard in 2016, however, and given that well over 90 percent of the cars sold in this country are automatics, we have to get used to the idea that the manual transmission will be a connoisseur's option in the future, just like the Mark Levinson stereo systems in a Lexus LS460 or the unique interior packages available on a Bentley Mulsanne. It's going to cost extra.