Carmakers almost had us convinced. They almost did it. They almost made us believe that no one wanted manuals anymore, that DCTs were better, and that rowing your own gears was going to go the way of POGs, The Hustle, and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s acting career. They were wrong! And fake manuals from Ferrari and the aftermarket are just proof that demand is there. The question is: Are these real manuals?
That’s the topic of this week’s Carbage Time podcast, and my carbage take is that carmakers were basically lying to us when they said that demand for manual sports cars was limited. While I don’t imagine every Nissan Sentra buyer wants a manual, people buying a Ferrari sure do.
As proof: The 12Cilindri Manuale. This is a Ferrari with a DCT that’s been retrofitted, by Ferrari, with a manual-like gearbox. Yes, the gorgeous gated shifter is back, and there’s a clutch pedal, but it’s basically shift-by-wire. Is this a bad thing? I don’t necessarily think it is. This is somewhat similar to the Koenigsegg CC850, which I think is cool. If that was it, I wouldn’t call it a trend, but then Rezvani came out with its own fake gearbox for DCTs (including Ferraris and the C8 Corvette), but this one with no clutch pedal. It’s super weird.
Given that Porsche told us the take-rates for 911 GT3s are above 50%, and that GT3 Touring sales are overwhelmingly manual, I think a lot of narratives we were sold by carmakers are just wrong. Are there buyers for manuals? Absolutely. Is the fact that DCTs are faster persuasive to most people? Not if they’re buying expensive sports cars and GTs. Porsche, by offering a mix of drivetrains, has gotten it right and has been rewarded with strong 911 sales this year.
We talk about all this on our latest episode.
You can also just listen to it, too, if you’d prefer that. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to look at my sweet Keith Haring hoodie I got from Costco. Maybe you don’t love art. Click the player below:
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I Think I Have An Issue With The Rezvani Clutchless Thing
This photo is, I think, a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso. And that panel contains a gated shifter that connects to the car’s seven-speed DCT gearbox so that when you shift, it shifts. Think of it as a unique twist on a paddle shifter, I guess (though, is it only six forward gears and a reverse?).
Named Rezvani QuickShift, the system was developed with Italian company Studio Carrozzi, and at a glance it resembles what Ferrari recently revealed for the 12Cilindri Manuale. As in that car, the Rezvani unit works alongside the existing dual-clutch rather than replacing it.
The company hasn’t provided in-depth details on exactly how its shifter works and how it’s mated to the dual-clutch. What it does promise is that it requires no permanent modifications to the transmission and is fully reversible. Rezvani also says the conversion leaves the factory engine management system and existing safety electronics intact. As with the finest manual gearboxes bolted into high-end supercars over the years, it uses a metal gated shifter for that authentic feel
Yes, that Rezvani. For $25,000 this is a strange choice, especially if you buy a version of this for your C8 Corvette. Couldn’t you just … buy a C6 Corvette to go along with your C8 when you want to shift yourself? Again, this market wouldn’t exist if there weren’t customers clamoring for what they can’t have, which is the thing that some automakers said only the hardest-core enthusiasts wanted.
This concept of a fake manual isn’t all bad, and I think Jason may have discovered a way to do this that we’d all probably be ok with at the lower end of the spectrum, though you’ll have to listen to the episode to hear him explain it.
Let me know what you think. Is this the future? Are we ok with clutch-by-wire?
Top photo: Rezvani
Fake bullshit…these absolutely miss the whole point of a manual…that you manually do it, it’s in the name! Manually meaning it’s all mechanical and does what it’s supposed to do w/o a wire/screen/etc. Anything besides that is fake that can’t be called a manual since it’s a LIE.
“Are these real manuals?” No
“This concept of a fake manual”
You just answered your own question and just called them fake
“Is this a bad thing?” Yes
Either it’s a real manual or nothing.
Anything else is fake, just like the driver…who can’t say they are using a manual because it would be a LIE
I think the car industry is in a transition moment – it used to be that “faster” and “more fun” were synonymous, but technology’s advanced to the point that the less the squishy meat part of the car/driver package is involved, the faster the lap times. Turns out lap times were a bad proxy for fun, and the thing we actually wanted was fun, and so now we gotta rethink a lot of stuff.
Many such cases.
I was offered a full race Datsun based car that had a deliberately soft shifting automatic to preserve the 240 era rear gears.
Very weird suspension tuning.
Staggering fast.
I could not accept that disconnect when shifting. Had to have a manual.
You can’t money shift a pseudo manual
With an automated clutch, pointless. It’s just less ergonomic than paddles or sequential lever. If you can control the clutch yourself, sure why not.
As a die-hard manuall transmission devotee, I don’t think any of the “simulated” manuals you guys discuss will at all satisfy drivers who like the control that comes from a manual. Simulating gear shifts is not at all the same as downshifting and engaging the clutch at just the right time/rate as you hit the curve to stay on the edge of control and then punch it as you come out.
I think it is also necessary to point out that since the drivers and those that care if a car is manual or not are aware of the fake nature of that beast, then all the cred of owning or driving one goes out the window.
My prediction:
Maybe?
Technically I’m a boomer and the boomers I know are the polar opposites of the stereotype. Boomers I don’t know are some of the worst people imaginable.I don’t think either would be interested in fake manual shifters.
I never found any use for the “shifter” on an automatic really.
The main thing about a manual is not so much choosing the gear, but using the clutch and flywheel to good affect. Of course driving diesel Mercedes makes you appreciate dropping the clutch at redline just to merge into traffic or get up a hill in San Francisco.
Who are we going to blame for everything when the boomers finish dying off? Gen X is being suspiciously quiet…
Boomers are not generally the Manual chasing crowd right now. most of them are just barely able to drive anymore anyway.
X is probably the one driving this, most of them are just now getting the generational wealth from the dying boomers and a lot of us recall the benefits of a good manual over the then weak sauce automatics. DCT’s and worse CVT’s were not even a thing really. but a 5 speed Moustang 5.0 or watching Sammy Hagar gate shifting a Ferrari while screaming about driving 55 definitely put the seed in many of our heads that the manual was a cool thing. Hell, I am certain that even the used muscle cars at the time were far more revered if they had a 4 speed on the floor.
I believe that the best experience of using manual transmissions is when you are trying to get the best performance (either gas mileage or ultimate power) from an NA engine. Once you add a turbo with peak torque at low RPM, I’m not sure if the joy is the same. When you have gobs of power across the entire powerband, I’m not sure a manual is appropriate. That said, I’ve never daily driven a turbocharged auto, so I am not the best judge. Test driving a 2025 Integra, I found myself shifting an awful lot on surface streets.
I had an M235i automatic and that was I think my least engaging car to drive, the ZF 8-speed and the N55 were both too competent for each other. The transmission didn’t need its many ratios to keep the engine within the torque band, and the engine never got to use its wide torque band to bridge the gap between gears.
I wrote to the Everyday Driver Podcast with a thesis about this in which I described the pairing of a torquey turbo and an 8-speed as “Michael Phelps on a Jet Ski”. If you want to hear Todd and Paul talk about it, it’s in episode 970.
“Michael Phelps on a Jet Ski” is A++ work and an analogy I will be appropriating for future use.
On weed too or not?
Wheelspin is fun… Drive an F87 M2 CS or a CT5-V Blackwing 6MT. Those cars are amazing with peak torque at low rpm…. ITS or CTR yeah just understeer, but still a blast. Meanwhile driving a 718 Spyder can be boring due to long gearing and NA torque limitations. Short gearing + NA is nice, but honestly I’d take a turbo miata with boost down low over a natually aspirated one.
I have a manual lockup automatic on a turbodiesel.
You can use it typically, or let it go up to top gear before lockup.
Or you can select any gear, and it’s locked in until released.
Daily driving a Volvo 740 turbo with a manual and I think way more boot than stock , I couldn’t imagine driving it with an automatic. Occasionally stabbing the clutch, flooring the gas, then with more boost and RPM taking
my foot off the clutch expedited passing with as little time in the oncoming lane as possible.
The s40 with a low pressure turbo was pretty good about dropping into a lower gear to preform the same maneuver, especially if I put the brakes on just a bit to not rear end someone in front of me.
Older turbos very much did not have peak torque at low rpm!
Before decent VVT, turbo motors were terrible for low torque. Manuals allowed you to rev them to get into the power band before dumping a clutch for maximum performance, at least so long as you did not break the tire loose trying.
I think the biggest tell that the lack of demand for a manual was a lie came from GM with the C8. I seem to recall that GM stated that the take rate for the first year of C7 production was 50% and still at 20% by the final year. Like if 1 in 5 customers still wants a stick after basically everyone who wants a C7 has already bought a C7 isn’t enough, it’s not the take rate, it’s corporate greed and wanting to boost profits by offering less choice.
I was one of potential customer for C8. As soon as I learned it will be DCT only, C8 is off my list
yep
I have to wonder if you can skip gears with a manual simulated DCT. I thought they had odd number gears on one clutch and even number on the other. But I could be wrong.
The reason they normally can’t skip-shift is because under automated operation, it disengages one clutch and reengages the other at the same time, so it takes just as long to shift twice as it would to skip-shift, and skipping around would just detract from the intuitive sequential operation.
But in a situation where the system is deliberately limiting itself to the speed at which a human hand and foot can move a shifter and actuate a pedal, there’s nothing stopping it from disengaging and reengaging the same clutch, because it’s a given that there’s a moment where the driver’s foot is fully in the E-clutch pedal and both clutches are completely disengaged. From that position, it can reengage either of them as the driver demands with the H-shifter.
Technical capabilities aside, I don’t like the stuff, it’s entirely technically sound from a “will it work” perspective, but their engineers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.
You can’t skip shift because all the even gears are on one clutch and shaft and the odd gears are on the other. Almost same a sequential box. You might be able to shift from 2nd to 5th but not from even to even or odd to odd.
You can’t skip-shift as fast as you can shift from even to odd and vice versa, but the hardware is capable of skip-shifting, it just takes twice as long.
A dual-clutch under normal operation does exactly what you say, it engages the dogs for the next gear, and disengages one clutch and engages the other simultaneously. But the clutches actually have separate actuators, and can be both disengaged at the same time. In the use case of the simulated H-pattern, it very well can disengage the clutch for second, and while the car is fully disengaged via the clutch-by-wire pedal, any gear ratio can be selected, including 4th and 6th, before the car reengages the appropriate clutch.
In a standard paddle-shifted DCT, there is no reason to program this mode of operation, because disengaging and reengaging the clutch to go from 2nd to 4th takes exactly the same amount of time that it takes to shift from 2nd to 3rd and then from 3rd to 4th, and both the software and the user experience are simplified by locking it into this sequential mode of operation.
For a bit of illustration, let’s say there are three modes for the clutches to be in:
1. The clutch for odd gears is engaged
2. The clutch for even gears is engaged
3. Neither clutch is engaged
Shifting from 1st to 2nd requires one change in clutch state: 1->2
Shifting from 2nd to 3rd is the opposite: 2->1
Shifting from 1st through 2nd to 3rd requires two changes: 1->2->1. While in state 2, the odd input shaft is free to disengage the dog ring for 1st and engage the dog for 3rd.
Shifting from 1st to 3rd without going through second would also require two operations: 1-3-1. During the time in state 3, both input shafts are disengaged and any dog ring on either shaft can be engaged until the clutch is reengaged. 1-3-1 takes the same amount of time as 1-3-2 or 2-3-1.
In H-pattern operation with a clutch by wire, every shift would go through state 3, with both clutches disengaged due to the pedal being pressed in. This is, of course, slower, as well as superfluous and wasteful in a dual-clutch transmission, but it does slow down every shift enough that skip-shifting wouldn’t be any slower than a regular shift, since every shift requires some amount of time disengaged while the driver selects the next ratio via the electronic H-pattern.
So while a dual clutch transmission simply wouldn’t benefit from skip-shifts via paddle and therefore isn’t programmed with the function, it is mechanically capable of it, and would be about as fast as a robotized single-clutch while doing it.
Yes of course, a double clutch transmission is really two transmissions and clutches that ordinarily alternate, but could be operated individually like a traditional single clutch transmission.
It seems unlikely that one would be programmed or designed to do that because one of the biggest advantages of a DCT is predicting that gear you are about to shift into. Not preparing for the shift ahead of time and being able to shift into any arbitrary gear would as you say slow things do a lot.
So, outside of heavy equipment and tanks, I doubt there are many , if any, DCT transmissions that would do that and of course the usual interface isn’t designed to allow for that. An H pattern shifter is by definition a random access shifter, so if a maker wants to have a gated shifter, then they have to allow for shifting from 4 to 8. .
I fully agreed, until the geniuses in Maranello decided to put an H-pattern gamepad on the center console for funsies.
In their simulated manual program, all shifts have to go through the 3rd state, with both clutches decoupled, because the clutch-by-wire pedal must be depressed before the simulated shifter is released from its simulated gate, and it must be moved by the driver into a different simulated gate before they can release the simulated clutch. As a result, none of the usual advantages of a dual clutch transmission apply, it’s just as slow as a manual but without the mechanical feedback.
The whole DCT thing seems like a solution looking for a problem. A planetary preselector box would be stronger and as fast, and a dog box would be as fast on upshifts.
If the engine and transmission are computer controlled, you could not use the clutch most of the time, get rid of the synchronizers and everything would be fine. Actually, controlling the engine alone would make no-clutch shifting with a crash box pretty easy. At least for acceleration I have done exactly in a few broken clutch incidents.
I suspect my standards for drivable automobiles may be setting an unusually low bar, but that’s the fun part right?
I’d certainly find the feeling of a sequential dogbox more interesting, and drive-by-wire would make such a system pretty dummy-proof. DCT’s are, if anything, a way to make sequentials more palatable from an NVH perspective.
They can shift a little smoother in “comfort” without having noticeable interruptions in power, so that’s an upgrade over a true single-clutch sequential, but it’s a bit of a “have your cake and eat it too” thing that’s great for the average consumer but takes away from the texture of a driving experience. Kinda like multilink suspension, there was just something so entertaining about the old semi-trailing arms…