How many fewer cars would Ferrari sell if only available in Manual Gearbox?

50%

 

How can anyone really answer this question?

It's a hypothetical situation that is never going to happen, so no one can say.

It's like saying:

"If Valentino Rossi had been an F1 driver instead of a MotoGP rider, what percentage of races would he have won?"

In both cases there's no way of knowing!

 

You can tell up to a point, can't you? Ferrari initially offered the F1 gearbox as an option. They stopped making manuals because customers stopped buying them. How many manual 599s or Californias are there? Hardly any because no-one bought them. Everyone ordered the F1 and if you look at the sales numbers you can see the trend very clearly heading to the point where the manual option made no sense to even offer any more. So why would they stop making F1 and only offer manual when it would clearly mean fewer sales?

Jonathan

 

My 2 newer Porsches are manual as is my 355. I've never heard a single person tell me I should have gotten an automatic. I hear a lot of people complimenting me on having a manual at car shows, valets, car wash, etc.... I think the classic market likes manuals
, the new market likes automatics because they are faster. People buying 488s still care about being the "fastest". I don't track my cars so I don't care about how fast they are.

So, I think they'd sell a lot less cars, maybe 20%. Peolple in he market for a new Ferrari still care about 0-60 times.

 

The paddle shifter is fun to me. On the track you can fly and keep both hands on wheel. You don't look down just straight ahead.

 

If they offered a manual I'd be surprised if 5% of orders were for the manual. When they offered it on the California only 2 or 3 cars were built with a stick. That pretty much depicts the new Ferrari buyer right there.

If they offered ONLY manual transmission they'd still sell 8000 cars, but in the states the proportion of cars with transmission syncro damage and trashed clutches would be like 90%. I think you'd see a ton of cars 3 years out with 200 or 500 miles on them. Just like today...

 

With Ferrari, Manuals are for the secondary market - that is mostly 2nd-hand buyers, who cannot afford new, but are true enthusiasts who want the gated shifter experience. There is a movement to convert F1 to Manual, for example.

It is difficult to know what would happen, since manuals are now pursued by collectors and greedy prospectors as well - with no intentions of driving them.

One good thing that might happen is older MT cars should then come down in price.

 

When I specked out my 430 as a stick I was told there would be a long wait because the allocations from the factory for sticks were limited. I could have gotten an F1 much faster

 

Fixed for you

 

That's the answer.

For fans of manuals, there are always the classic Ferraris.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

That's like asking how many Ferraris would they sell today if they only came with drum brakes. The fact of the matter is that technology has changed and evolved and if Ferrari is expected to put out the best performing car it can (and that's how it got to where it is today) then the manual gearbox is dead.

Look, I love manual gearbox Ferraris (I own two) and the cars they make today don't seem to excite me like that cars from the past. However, I don't want them to make anything other than what they make today because that means not putting out the best product possible and that's just not okay.

There are plenty of Ferraris out there for the likes of people like me. They're used and that's okay with me. I'll continue to buy what I like the most and I don't really care about the stuff that's not for me.

 

What has happened is Ferrari's customer base has changed. Once upon a time, only playboys, wealthy industrialists, and the jet set brought a Ferrari. Even then, the cars mostly sat in the garage. But as Ferrari moved into the modern era, particularly under Luca, more and more Ferrari owners started driving their cars in the real world. There have even been threads here about using a Ferrari as a DD. For most of us, the real world means an urban area, and this means traffic. Because a stick can be a royal PIA when driving around the city, particularly if you're drinking a cup of coffee and talking on the cell, most people prefer an automatic. Then there is the reality more and more drivers don't know how to use a stick*; hey, you gotta go with the flow.

* Here's how my old man taught me how to use a stick. We lived at the top of a hill. So he would back the VW halfway down the driveway, turn it off, and put on the parking brake. He would then hand me the key. You learn about engagement pretty quickly when you're trying to release the clutch with your left foot, while releasing the park brake and heel and toeing on the brake and accelerator with your right foot. The year was 1965.