Ferrari hasn’t offered a manual transmission since 2012. It almost sounds like a travesty until you think about how racing is the raison d’être for the storied brand and how everything—including dual-clutch transmissions—trickles down from the racetrack. Now it seems that Ferrari may bring back the manual transmission.
Well, sort of.
Even if you cannot afford a Ferrari, the lack of manual transmission is symbolic: if Ferrari doesn’t offer a manual, could that mean the whole world of sports cars and more will be moving towards techie transmissions that can respond faster than the punch of a mantis shrimp? That is what’s been happening, though there are certainly a few holdouts available in the American market. By now, enthusiasts have become used to cringing while reading road tests with performance and gas mileage metrics that lean in favor of automatics.
Car and Driver reports that the automaker is considering bringing back a manual transmission (gated, of course). In a conversation to the Australian magazine Carsales, Ferrari’s chief product development boss, Gianmaria Fulgenzi, went on record saying, “We are reaching the limit of performance in our cars. In Formula 1, it’s 2.3 seconds for zero to 100km/h. With the SF90 XX we are at more or less 2.5 seconds or 2.4 seconds – and that’s with four-wheel drive.” (Technology and the human body can only handle so much, it seems.)
It sounds absurd that a manual transmission may be necessary to dumb-down the Ferrari experience, yet the company has the perspective that manuals “detract from outright performance.” That being said, if a manual transmission becomes available, it won’t be across the board. According to Fulgenzi, the model to receive the option will likely be those within the Icona series “because it’s a car that represents our heritage, a car to be admired and to be driven in a certain way.” If ever a Ferrari is attainable, this isn’t the one.
The upside, if this ends up happening, is that we can hope that Ferrari will follow with a manual transmission for lesser models to give us groundlings something for which to aspire. Plus, maybe Ferrari’s influence will create more manual transmission happiness among all automakers as the world of personal transportation continues to evolve.