Enthusiasts don’t get many wins these days. Every other week, you hear about a cool trim being discontinued or an iconic sports car being revived as a hybridized crossover. It’s the same story with manual transmissions. Over the past few years, the number of manual cars available to the buying public has shrunk to just 21 vehicles.
One of those vehicles is the Ford Mustang. The last of America’s pony cars can still be had with two of the car’s three V8-powered trims, the GT and the Dark Horse. Though the stick can no longer be ordered with the base four-cylinder EcoBoost, and was never available on the top-level GTD, being able to pair the six-speed with Ford’s 5.0-liter Coyote engine remains a sort of last bastion for purist American muscle.
Sales of the Mustang are a fraction of what they used to be, so keeping different powertrains in the lineup isn’t as sensible for Ford as it once was. If Ford announced it wouldn’t be bringing back the stick shift for the next generation of Mustang, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest (but I would be deeply upset, obviously).
Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen any time soon, according to CEO Jim Farley. Ford’s head honcho revealed to journalists last weekend during the Formula 1 Melbourne Grand Prix that the manual transmission in the Mustang is here to stay for the foreseeable future. From CarExpert:
Speaking to Australian media including CarExpert at the 2026 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, the Ford CEO said: “Out of our cold, dead hands will we not have a manual Mustang.”
While that line sort of makes it sound like Ford is keeping a floating, autonomous set of hands operating on the company’s behalf, similar to the Master Hand character from the video game series Super Smash Bros., locked away somewhere holding onto a stick shift as hard as they possibly can, the phrase is obviously a play on actor Charlton Heston’s famous speech at the 2000 NRA National Convention, speaking on his beliefs regarding the Second Amendment in the lead up to that year’s presidential election. The part of the speech in question is at the 0:58 mark:
“From my cold, dead hands,” a shortened version of “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” But in Farley’s case, the cold, dead hands are clutching a shift knob.
It’s pretty well-documented that Farley is an avid car enthusiast and racing driver, so it makes he’d have a similarly strong stance on manual transmissions. Unfortunately, since he did not find himself awakened in the far future surrounded by talking primates, Farley didn’t go full circle and quote Heston from any of his actual films (during this interview, anyway. If you can find any mention of Farley saying something about damned dirty apes somewhere online, please let me know.)
The “our” in that quote does some lifting, suggesting it’s not just him that feels that way, but others within the Ford organization. It’s very likely the higher-ups within Ford have done the math on the manual, both for the Mustang and the Bronco, and realized it might not be worth it to keep them going. Yet, they still exist here, today, in the year 2026. That’s what you get when enthusiasts are in charge. Later in that interview, Farley reiterated the “no boring cars” phrase he’s been throwing around these past few years:
“I really believe Ford best serves the working people and enthusiast drivers,” he said. “And that’s increasingly off-road as well as on-road, and I like to say we don’t have any boring cars at Ford.”
Whether you agree with that statement will depend on whether you think cars like the E-Transit or the Bronco Sport are boring or not. For an automaker as large and diverse as Ford, making every car in its lineup truly exciting is a gargantuan task. But at least it’s trying. In addition to the Mustang, there’s also the Explorer ST and high-performance Raptor versions of the Bronco, the Ranger, and the F-150. That’s a pretty wide range of fun cars.
No matter what you think of Ford’s current lineup, you have to at least give props to the company for helping to keep the manual alive. The stick shift’s future in the Mustang feels as secure as ever, which is a seldom-seen win for enthusiasts everywhere.
Top graphic images: Ford
“I really believe Ford best serves the working people…”
Maybe if you’re talking work trucks and fleet vehicles. Otherwise, civilian craft begin at $32K for a Bronco Sport with the yucky engine. Your cross-town rival will sell me a legitimate entry level family commuter for $23K. It has a yucky engine too but I’m paying only 66% for the privilege.
“…and enthusiast drivers”
I’m currently staring at my Fiesta ST, perhaps the happiest little crapcan to blat down these roads since the original Miata, and now out of production since 2019. The cheapest non-Bronco manual is now a $48K Mustang when Honda, Toyobaru, Hyundai still off an engaging drivers car or two for far less than that.
CEOs and their mealy-mouthed market-speak. Whaddya gonna do?
He didn’t say the enthusiast drivers he was talking about were “working people”.
I read the headline without looking at the picture closely and I thought Ford was going to keep printed paper manuals for their cars no matter what.
I just loved that headline! 🙂
Fuck Farley. He’s done more damage to Ford than any of their competitors ever could, but he thinks some ra-ra speech about manuals is going to save his company??
As the article states, the manual is no longer available on the base Mustang. So is he bringing that back? Its not like this is an “all new” Mustang, so they simply could have kept on-keeping on with the old base powertrain, but they chose not to. Under his watch. And he’s got no other cars to put a manual into.
The Bronco Sport can’t be boring if you’re upset when its engine finds a new way to annihilate itself and you’re waiting for parts to fix it, right?
Hey Jim, discontinue the MT82 and just put the Tremec’s in everything
Word. Ditch the Getrag and TR6060 every model.
Ford offers two vehicles with manual transmission for 2026. That’s more than most brands.
The same amount as /checks notes/ a Ca- no that can’t be right /rechecks notes/ wow, the same as Cadillac…
That is nice if you like manuals.
The downside is that it also likely means that the Mustang will limp along with mild refreshes. Can’t see spending $$$$$ to have a supplier design a new transmission to sell 10,000 a year.
Heston thrashed a blue (though automatic) Mustang around the streets of LA in the opening sequence of The Omega Man, which also featured a lot of guns. It all ties in.
I don’t know if I would follow him across the Red Sea though.
How about him in twin roles through a mine shaft to the Mother Lode?
I can’t not hear Jim Farley saying “damn, dirty apes” now. It does work.
“Charles?”
Autocorrupt strikes again. At least, I hope it’s Autocorrupt.
Nope, I effed it up all by myself (unless it autocorrected in Slack, from where I copy-pasted it)