https://www.yahoo.com/news/porsche-possibly-working-non-limited-132205351.html
Counterpoint... The disappearing stick shift: Less than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions - LA Times In 2006, 47% of new models offered in the U.S. were available with both automatic and manual transmissions, according to a study by Edmunds.com. By 2011, that number had dropped to 37%. This year, the number has fallen to 27%. The actual sales figures are even lower. Edmunds senior analyst Ivan Drury said fewer than 3% of current U.S. car sales are manual vehicles — compared with 80% in some European and Asian countries, and down in the U.S. from 7% in 2012 and 25% in 1992. Its dead Jim, like the Car Phone, the Walkman and the TV Picture tube. I can tell you for a fact because last year I went looking for a Manual Mini S and finally found one -- that the dealer couldn't sell. People don't want them anymore Its like the Jerry Seinfeld joke "Sooooo, what's the deal with people still eating with chopsticks???? They've seen THE FORK!"
Men and women in Japan have quit having sex (by and large); This in no way makes it less fun than it was before. Manual gearboxes allow one to communicate with their car in ways no auto no computer controlled gear slammer can. For example, say you want to take 3 seconds to switch between 4th and 6th gear. Can't do that with a flapper. F1's Can't let the clutch out over 2 seconds so that the car accelerates glacially and smoothly.
Mayor that stat is for all cars, most cars are appliances for people. In sportscar land its different. Dodge Callengers have a 50/50 take up rate. Vettes is something like 35% BMW M4 40%. Depends on the car and intended market, for sportscars its still a significant number. Well see how many G3s they sell with a stick, from what I hear these are sold out at a premium etc. So as many as porche will make. GT4s were a 100% takeup rate there were not paddles offered and the G4 doubled overall cayman sales. There are lies dammed lies and then there are statistics.
Thats a very good point. It also goes to where I was going- I don't think you can draw a lesson for Ferrari with the 911R or other model. I don't think Ferrari will ever make a model with pure electric. I think Ferrari is a company with racing at its core. And with that comes their ICE. It's like a fine watchmaker. You buy a Patek for its movement- though these days many buy it for other reasons- at its core, its about the movement. When you buy a Ferrari, theres a reason they dress up the engine and engine bay. Its about that racing heritage present in the engine. Sure they might add some electric assist, but pure electric? No way. Ferrari and stick is most likely a thing of the past. Same as carburetors, etc.
They are dying. Funny you brought up the CD observation. I recently bought my wife a new Mazda 3 and it doesn't have a CD player. It does have a manual 6 speed however, and a pretty slick one at that. Back to the regularly scheduled manual transmission conversation Joe
Agree completely. Even my 997 Turbo, mildly modified with a mere 550bhp is too fast to truly use as intended. I get maybe 3 or 4 seconds of full throttle acceleration before I'm well over the speed limit and immediately looking around to make sure no police are around. Sure feeling that power is fun (and this car is a snail compared to the new stuff), but its not really useable. Going full throttle through 4 gears in my boxster with a 280bhp 3.2L is all kinds of fun because you actually have time to enjoy the sensations. As for track driving, i'd argue that the vast majority of ferrari, porsche, etc owners don't have the skills to properly track a 348, much less a 488. You see it all the time at the track. The guys with 8 million hp fly down the straight, hit 150-180mph, and then come to a damn near stop to take the turns. And really, if you were to turn off all the nannies, there are few owners that could exploit these cars' performance, street, track or otherwise.
I don't disagree. There are people who like vinyl records too saying it sounds better -- but try to find the latest Taylor Swift album in vinyl. You can't because there aren't enough people out there who want it to support it economically. The manual gearbox is going through the same thing. There are people who claim its better for this reason and that. But not enough to justify it --- especially in our current world obsessed with fuel economy, emissions, 0-60 times and HP. WE are the enemy. WE are killing the manual box, not the manufacturers. If the auto makers thought they could make a buck making and producing manual cars we'd see a load of them. But they don't believe it.
Latest not on vinyl yet, but most of the others are: https://www.amazon.com/Red-2-LP-Taylor-Swift/dp/B009NT0I06 I don't understand it either. Blame Urban Outfitters and B&N.
No. Porsche 992 platform in 2 years will apparently be auto only. New emission regs to blame apparently ? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
So all you do with a semi-automatic Ferrari is go from 4th to 5th, accelerate very gently, and then go from 5th to 6th and, "Hey presto!", a 4th to 6th gear change in as many seconds as you want. All it takes is a couple of pulls on a paddle with you finger tips - Hardly the most difficult thing to do! A semi - automatic car will only accelerate as fast as you allow it to - Even if the car in question is a Ferrari! And a big advantage of a semi-automatic Ferrari is, there's no chance of miss down-shifting to a gear that's too low for the road speed, risking smashing into the rev-limiter and causing the rear axle to lock up completely - Try down shifting too many gears in a semi-automatic and the cars computers will simply say: "Sorry Dave.......I can't do that!". A manual car on the other hand will simply let you get on with it, and any damage caused will be your own fault! Another advantage of a semi-automatic Ferrari is the fact that there is room for both of your feet in the drivers foot-well to operate the pedals, without the need to twist your ankles to avoid hitting two pedals at once (quite a common issue for those with large feet trying to drive a Ferrari!).
Failing to get the experience of doing it yourself. And impossible to feather the clutch out so that there is not thrust shock to the suspension. A person downshifting like you indicate is a person who cannot use a manual transmission. A) he was not listening to the car (unaware of the RPMs versus speed relationship), B) used poor technique (let the clutch out too fast), C) botched the timing. In effect, a complete dolt. And over hundreds of thousands of such events, I can't remember a single time I damaged anything--heck I'm at 66K miles, 5K of which took place of race tracks and I'm still on the original clutch. Another disadvantage, is that your left foot has nothing to do and atrophies, along with your brain.
"Doing it yourself" is a lot slower than letting the computers do it for you. It's like sending a letter when you could use email - It's nice and quaint, but if you want a fast answer, it's not the way to go! And whilst early single clutch semi-automatics such as those found in the F355 F1 were renowned for being a bit harsh and putting a shock load through the drive-train, the latest dual-clutch semi-automatics are a lot more gentle on the drive train. All true - However, the point I'm making is, with a semi-automatic gearbox, even with the most ham-fisted driver on the planet onboard, there's no risk of it happening. So you're representative of ever single Ferrari driver on the planet? Sorry to break it to you, but not every driver is as good as you obviously are! Really? Ever heard of left foot braking? - I hear it's quite popular in minority sports such as Formula 1/GT racing/rallying etc., etc. (Hell [ at the swear filter! - Is the Devil's residence really a swear word?], the Scandinavian rally boys used to left foot brake manual gearbox rally cars decades before semi-automatics were even though of!) I've used it for years when driving automatics/semi-automatics. Once mastered, you can adjust the attitude of the car mid-bend with careful application of both pedals, and, you can get back on the power earlier. It's like heel 'n' toeing in a manual, but with more room for your feet!
What about those times you want to "do it slow"? If you want to do it fast, it is pretty easy to slam from gear to gear without using the clutch, just go to maintenance throttle, and bang up the gearbox. None are so gentle that you can safely switch gears on glare ice. Why are Ferrari making cars for ham-fisted drivers????????? Yes, I left foot brake all the time, even WITH a manual tranny. When doing this with a manual, you actually have to use your brain and figure out whether you need to downshift in the middle of braking, or not. But those ham-fisted drivers are already taxed out just thinking about braking.
I totally agree that manual is simply marvelous, but it can't be said enough that the reason other manufacturers can do it is their sheer economies of scale. It takes all of Porsche about 8-9 months to make what took Ferrari 70 years to produce. There are more Mustangs made in a year and a half (Camero about 2 years) to equal the number of every Ferrari made in 70 years. Corvette 2016 Production: 40K Camaros 2014 Production: 98K Mustang 2014 Production: 134K Some bean counter already determined long ago that it is a money loser. Ferrari is after all in the business of making money, and if something won't make money (or could potentially lose money) - they won't do it (see California and Gallardo stories.) I don't think anybody is against having a manual version, it's just the folks that want manual don't seem to make the lion share of new car purchasers.
Thanks to Porsche, we will soon see what the higher end of the market thinks about manual transmissions. The new GT3 will have it as a no cost option, for both the winged car and a new "touring" package car that provides a Guerney Flap and moveable deck lid spoiler that is flush until deployed at higher speeds. For those wanting a NA, 500bhp, 9k redline car with a manual, this is your car, with or without the big, stationary wing, though I think you can't get a touring version with PDK, whilst you can with the big winged car. Sales numbers of both transmission types will tell the story, though Porsche may choose not to reveal them. It would be interesting to see the manual transmission sales numbers for the Corvette, Camaro and Mustang.
This is a very interesting question. Don't forget that Enzo himself was technically wrong in stating that, "a Ferrari is a 12 cylinder car", so I get the concept of marque evolution. The problem for us manual fans is that we represent an aging and numerically decreasing demographic. In a decade or so Ferrari won't care what people like me want ... hell, they might not care right now. But others seem to get it: Porsche, Lotus, Aston, Corvette. If you are a business man, however, you must ask the question, "where did that get the Dodge Viper"? Come to think of it, Lotus is - yet again - teetering on the brink. Ultimately, I fear that The Mayor was correct in his above statement; in 20 years our cars may be illegal for street use anyway. But for me, the idea of all sports and exotic cars being electric makes me almost suicidal. (OK, that was hyperbole, but you get the point.) Drive 'em now, get all the fun you can, and take good videos!
I think it is unlikely that Ferrari will ever build another manual car. The idea that the manual gearbox is a thing of the past / today's generation cannot use a manual gearbox, however, is not true. Not everyone lives in the USA. Here in the UK, probably no more that one new car in four has only two pedals. I would guess that that goes for most of Europe and a lot of other parts of the world, too.
I think you dont quite understand the manual demand in the USA. and its roots, nor do soem otehrs who live in the USA. It also seems that while there are more manual cars sold in europe we have we have far more manual perfomance car offerings here than europe. In fact in europe there are hardley any manual performance cars offered. The demmand for the BMW m series to come in manual is from the USA almost exclusively, not europe. The issue in europe is cheap crapboxes, ie most of the cars sold there were manuals, so an auto is seen as premium. In the uSA great sportscars were from Europe and most always were manual. Autoboxes were slower and always less fun. Since in the uSa we also have mostly crap roads and idioticaly low speed limits, the more the car asks of us at lower speeds the more entertaining and desrireable it may be, hence the desire for manuals in sportscars. Its also true that with corvettes and Camaros now having 650hp and just as much Tq the need to rapidly shift gears is diminished so a manual is unlikely to have a performnce penalty and is likely to be far more enteraining to drive. I always laugh when I hear paddles are faster. yes on track if you are skilled enough to drive thats fast and your brain can process the speed fast enough, which is unlikly to be 99.9999% of new ferrari woners. What paddles are is an excuse to drive an autobox and get away with it by saying they are faster. In fact most ferrai owners go nowhere near a tarck, Of those that do very few have the skills to drive with the nannies off let alone take advangge of paddle benefits. Its also far easier for lazy company, that thinks it can sell everything to not do a manual, Its easier for emissions and fuel economy