Enough with the Flappy-Paddles only

Why does this topic keep coming back to: "Porsche offer it!" statements as though that automatically means that Ferrari have to offer it?

Porsche also offer engines mounted behind the rear axle, a four door model, a 4X4 SUV and build as many cars in a week as Ferrari do in a year! - I guess Ferrari must have to follow suit on those business plans too, based on your statement!

Er.... you have to design and manufacture a different floor/bulkhead to allow for the pedal box and clutch pedal linkage (if you've actually got room for three pedals!), you have to design and manufacture a different pedal box, you have to design the linkage for the manually operated clutch, you have to have a bespoke manual gearbox manufactured, you have to design and manufacture different interior centre consoles for the gear lever arrangement, you have to alter the cars electrical systems to allow for the manual gearbox, to name but a few of the requirements needed!

If you think changing a car design from flappy paddles to a manual gearbox is on a par with altering the colour of some stitching or adding some cup-holders then you are seriously underestimating modern car design!

To recoup the cost of developing a manual version of a new model, the few customers who would want such a car would end up paying double the price for their car compared to those who ordered a flappy paddle version due to the market for a manual Ferrari being so small.

I keep coming back to this same statement and cannot really understand why it's so hard to comprehend:

If there was a big enough market for a manual Ferrari then Ferrari would build one!

Porsche make a manual car because there is a big enough market for a manual Porsche to justify the additional cost of development and production.

Ferrari don't make a manual car because there isn't a big enough market for a manual Ferrari to justify the additional cost of development and production.


Also, as it stands right now:

Ferrari build a maximum of 7,000 cars a year and have no intention of exceeding that number.
Ferrari sell all 7,000 cars it builds in a year.
None of those 7,000 cars come with a a manual gearbox.

This means that Ferrari have no need to go to the extra expense of manufacturing manual gearbox models!

 

To be fair, Ferrari could have chosen to make those components modular during the design phase. It's not as though they were handed a 2-pedal car designed someplace else and asked to modify it. Do it right and it's not that many parts.

Once the F1 went DCT, though, it required a different gearbox than the 3-pedal version. Given the sales situation I can see why they dropped the conventional transmission at that point.

 

+1, well stated.

 

You're vastly overestimating the difficulty of using a clutch pedal. If a guy can build a tech business from scratch he can probably figure out a clutch.

What possible benefit would there be to adding a manual clutch to a DCT gearbox?

I also doubt there's any benefit to an old school manual in accessing a gear directly. If you watch F1, and watch the F1 drivers' shifting on the onscreen graphics, you'll see how quickly they drop to the desired gear with essentially no interruption in power to the wheels. If there was some performance advantage to a direct 5-2 downshift, Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari at al would have figured that out by now.

 

This.

Jimmy

 

The benefit is the ability to modulate fishtails and drifts better. On motorcycles the proper way to wheelie is to "clutch up" and it's similar in the car for sliding. Just adding power works but personally doesn't allow for as much control.

 

Drifts are great for YouTube videos, not for competitive lap times, and not for keeping tires in proper condition.

If there was a net advantage to drifting, Ferrari and other F1 constructors would be facilitating it. Instead they've invested in proper traction/suspension development.

 

Is it possible that you miss also the bulky handbrake lever?

 

-What does the e-brake do if your battery dies?
-What if you need to try and stop the car whilst in motion, like a real emergency brake?

 

- I place a stone behind the wheel.
- I'm not sure if I understood your question right but I can use also the electronic parking brake while driving (redundant brake system in dynamic state).

(sorry for OT)

 

Great and balanced view point . I completely understand your reasoning and it's quite simply personal preference. No one can argue with that...

 

Just to come back to this response to My post:

You've completely missed the point that I was making.

"Back in the day", wire wheels were seen as the height of technology for performance cars. Everybody, not just Ferrari, fitted their high performance cars with wire wheels for decades.

Then, wheel evolution moved on and alloy wheels took over as the height of technology.

For quite a while, you could have your car with wire wheels or alloy wheels, which with Ferrari, lasted right up until the Daytona.

After the Daytona though, the wire wheels were no longer offered by the factory because there was no longer a big enough market for them.


Skip forward a few decades and now it's the same story with the gearboxes.

Technology has moved on and gearboxes have evolved into the flappy paddle gearboxes.

Just as happened with the wire wheels, the market for the manual gearbox has shrunk to such a degree that it's no longer big enough to justify offering them any more.

I'm sure there were plenty of people "back in the day" who acknowledged that alloy wheels were the better wheel performance wise, but personally felt that wire wheels looked better.

And now today, there are people acknowledging that the flappy paddle gearboxes offer better over performance compared to a manual gearbox, but they still prefer the manual.

What can you say but: "Times have moved on! - Take a seat next to the wire wheel fans!"

 

So, you're deliberately avoiding the question of why Ferrari is stiffing us wire wheel fans who want a 458.

 

I dont know where you got the idea that wire wheels lost out to market demmand. The demise of the wire wheel was that while it was once the lightest option lighter stiffer less maintanance intensive mag wheels replaced it. Wire wheels lost out not only to the styling wars they were functionaly inferior having too much bend and twist, a serious drawbcak as grip improved. A wire whel also therefore lacled prescision and detracted fromt he driving experience.

The arguements given lack the relaity of driving. Drum brakes for example lacked repetitive stopping ability, disks were suoperior. But disks did not ruin pedal feel and the ability to thereshold brake. They did not take away from drivign dynamics, they just expanded the art of the possible. Same with radial tires.

Paddles expand the performance envelope, but at a serious interaction cots.

I get thta in all out attack mode you cxan concentrate ont he other dynamics better, and I get they are convenient in traffic. But most fo us do most of our brisk driveing neither in all out attcak nor in traffic, we drive for fun, and inetract witht he machine in a smany ways as possible.

e,

 

You're pretty much making the same argument as I am but without acknowledging that the new technology eventually leads to a decline in the market demand for the old technology.

The whole point of My post is that, wire wheels were the height of wheel technology for performance cars for decades until motoring evolution led to alloy wheels that were far more efficient for performance driving (as you have correctly pointed out).

For a time, Ferrari offered the option of wire wheels or alloy wheels, but eventually, alloy wheels took over completely and Ferrari no longer offered wire wheels. Why? because people wanted alloy wheels because they were the better technology and so the orders for wire wheels dwindled until it made no sense to offer them anymore - That's just an historic fact!

Now with gearboxes, manual gearboxes have ruled the roost until motoring evolution led to the flappy paddle gearboxes that we have today. For a while, Ferrari offered both manual and flappy paddle gearboxes but noticed that the sales of manual gearboxes was shrinking rapidly because flappy paddle gearboxes are far more efficient for performance driving than manual gearboxes (they may not be as much fun to some but they're far more efficient!), and the vast majority of buyers preferred them.

The demand for both wire wheels and manual gearboxes dwindled down to a point where Ferrari decided that the market for them was too small to justify the cost and so dropped them.

How you can fail to see how market demands due to advances in technology (i.e people wanting the new technology rather than the old technology), have helped lead to the demise of wire wheels and manual gearboxes on Ferrari's, is slightly baffling!

If there was still a big enough demand for wire wheels and manual gearboxes then Bullfighter would be able to tootle around in a 458 with wire wheels, happily stroking his stick-shift, but he cant! - Motoring evolution has killed them off on Ferrari's!

 

My understanding is that only approx. 15% of 430's sold were three pedal cars. I also heard a couple of stories of people that wanted to order a three pedal 430 but were told by Ferrari that they couldn't as there were only a certain number of cars allotted to be built with three pedals? If this is true Ferrari made the decision not the buyers?

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: give me a clutch pedal and paddles.

 

I believe this company makes such a product:
Paddle Shifters, Sequential and Electronic - ASaP

However, it appears to operate in an odd manner. You click the paddles to whatever gear you prefer, then hit the clutch, and it will make it so. You don't use the clutch until you actually want it to shift. So, to go from 5th to 2nd, you would click down-shift paddle 3 times and then hit the clutch to make the actual shift.

While this is a bit strange, compared to holding the clutch down and then releasing to initiate a gear change, it does allow you to go direct to any forward gear.

 

Ferrari made the decision knowing the uptake of three-pedal manuals in the 360, which was also quite low over the the six-year run of ~17,000 cars. Plenty of data. If demand for three-pedal manuals had been strong in 1999 and 2000, we would have seen production shift in 2001 and 2002. But... that doesn't seem to have been the case.

The real problem is that Porsche won't let us order an air-cooled engine anymore. I know water-cooled produces more power, but some of us like going slower with a lot of engine noise and bad a/c ...

 

I understand what you are saying. The differentiator is that when you went from wire wheels to mags and radials not only was there an improvement in performance"effciency" but the driving experience got enhanced as well due to a reduction in wheel slop from the twisting of the wires.

Disk brakes not only make the car stop better, but also could do so consistently, they enhanced the driving experience because braking was more predictable and consistent.
But disk brakes did not remove the brake pedal, and we still debate pedal feel and pedal travel. There was much consternation over the first ABS systems because they corrupted pedal travel and feel.

Mag wheels did not remove the steering wheel as a tactile point, and in fact we did not have adoption of pS systems untill their performance well enough micked the feel of an unassisted rack.

We still debate the merrits of eps because it corrupts feel

Technology is fine up to the point hwere it limits and or bland sout the driving experience.

Paddles are more efficient, but a traon is more efficient than a car. and a2 cyl more tehrmaly efficient thana 12, or a 4 and a 12/ What price are you rpepred to pay for raw efficiency. Many of us draw a line at paddles.

Wire wheels also lost out because of an evolutyion isn styling ansd styling tastes, which is a whole otehr subject.

As to market forces. Enough other car companies are sellign enough mnaual cars that clearly there is a market for them. That ferrari does not may asay a lot about Fearri these dyas who they cosse to cater too and who their clientale is.

 

I can't believe this argument has lasted 20 pages.

You guys do realize that Ferrari killed manual boxes in 2009 -- and their sales have gone UP, not down since. That includes surviving a stock market crash and the "great recession" and price increases across the board on every model every year.

You would think that if it was such a mistake, the opposite would have happened. You would think that the California would have been a sales disaster instead of one of Ferrari's best sellers and the number one choice for first time buyers. You would think they were following consumer demands and trends in what they are looking for in a high performance machine.

You would think, wouldn't you?

NOTE TO PADDLE HATERS: the cars have changed because consumers have changed.

 

Ferrari sles have not gone up. They recently announced a vlontary reduction in cars built to "maintain" exclusivity.

i guess many of us lament the real ferrari experience. Yes they are more profitable now, and yes if they had rmeained more ourist they would be on their knees like Lotus. But drive an elsie and you really dont wnat tod rive naything else, expet maybe a 997.2 Gt3 and you hoipe ferrari makes something liek that only better.

Not knocking the current cars, just looking for a more viceral engaing choice from ferrari. Maybe then they would have those extra 500-1000 sles they know they cant get now, and the brand would have more cred than the current negative stigma..

 

I'm with you.

We shouldn't forget that Ferrari lives from selling new cars. They are doomed to generate new market demand, they are doomed to push innovations. In the manual transmission gearbox was no longer enough potential for an attractive innovation step. One gear more? Two gears more? Not really an innovation.

One cornerstone from Ferraris corporate mission is to transfer technology innovation from the racing sport into the consumer market.

The actual gearbox-technology is a great example how this works.

Ferrari has tested the "flappy-paddle"-innovation transfer in 1998 with the F1-gearbox in the Ferrari 355 as an option to the manual transmission. Ferrari was the first supplier offering in a street car such a gear technology worldwide!! This innovation created interest, was further developed and perfected. Again a great example how Ferrari is able to generate new market demand and how to generate clear differentiators against the competition.

 

Really? They've peaked at 7300 in 2012 and running about 7K now-- but that's a lot higher than when they dumped the manual box in 2009.
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I think the 15% number is high, more like 8 - 10%.

Jimmy