The manual transmission is in its last gasps. It won’t be long before we have a time of death, it’s just a matter of which automaker will be last to sell one. The sensible money would be on one of the boutique hypercar companies building perhaps a handful of cars a year. But, Aston Martin might throw its hat in the ring for one last spin with a real clutch pedal.
During a media event at Monterey Car Week, Aston Martin CEO Adrian Hallmark spoke with Road & Track about the possibility of a real manual transmission. With something of a manual resurgence happening, albeit one with real and fake manuals, it’s a timely question.
Don’t Get Too Excited… Maybe
Is this the most beautiful stick shift ever made? The mad Aston Martin Valiant, a car partly developed by Formula One legend Fernando Alonso, has a manual gearbox that is also a work of art.Aston Martin
According to Hallmark, Aston is weighing its options between a real transmission, a simulated manual transmission like the one Ferrari has just come up with, or forgetting the idea and sticking to automatics. The reason we say don’t get too excited is because Hallmark has good reasons why it wouldn’t make good business sense.
It boils down to the fact that Aston’s manuals were based on older-generation architecture and electronics. Aston has manual transmissions or could source one. The problem is making it work with modern safety and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
“Because when you’ve got ADAS – because this car’s got all the safety systems of a production car, if we put a manual in, you couldn’t have the adaptive speed control and the anti-crash intervention,” Hallmark told Road & Track, “To take that out … and to modify it is more cost than developing a new manual gearbox.”
It Can Be Done, But At A Cost
2026 Aston Martin Vantage SIan Wright/CarBuzz/Valnet
There’s a touch of flawed logic in Hallmark’s words. The Honda Civic Type R (and a few other manuals) show us that a stick shift can work with ADAS, including adaptive cruise control. However, there’s a reason BMW’s manual transmission cars don’t include adaptive cruise control. BMW has likely looked at the cost and shaken its head, while Honda’s Civic Type R is a halo car, not necessarily a profit machine.
Aston Martin has its own case, in that it’s not a mainstream brand selling a mainstream number of cars like Porsche or BMW, nor is it selling cars in the silly money bracket like Koenigsegg.
“And then, when you look at how many cars you need to sell at what incremental price to offset the cost of the box and the electronics, it’s a marginal case, which I guess is why Ferrari has done what it’s done,” Hallmark says. “So our dilemma: Do we do a fake manual? Or, don’t go manual? So that’s the problem.”
While the idea of a real three-pedal manual transmission in the current Vantage is mouth-watering for some, it’s going to boil down to simple math. Could Aston Martin sell enough to justify developing one? We would suggest that, as BMW has worked out, losing adaptive cruise control isn’t a deal-breaker for those that want to keep it old school.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters
Ferrari Simulated Manual RenderCarBuzz
Here’s the reality. It’s not just that people have stopped buying cars with a manual transmission, it’s also that manual transmissions have reached their technological ceiling. Beyond not working well with modern safety and driver assistance systems, manual transmissions also deliver a measurable reduction in performance.
Lamborghini has stated that it isn’t considering a manual transmission again for that reason, and Ferrari’s faux manual is clearly an attempt to appease the few. Also with Ferrari, there really isn’t a reduction in performance since the faux stick can still be operated automatically as a modern dual-clutch gearbox.
A few automakers can still justify it, but the manual is not long for this world. When Ferrari, one of the most elitist driver’s carmakers in the world, shrugged its shoulders and stopped making real manual transmission cars, that was the beginning of the end. The reality is that if you want a brand-new manual transmission-based car, you had better grab one now. Or, just buy a used MT car that was designed with that in mind and enjoy the raw experience.
Source: Road & Track
