Ferrari consigns manual gearbox to history

Ferrari has ruled out any notion of the manual transmission ever finding its way into its supercars – despite the configuration coming back into vogue recently.

With Porsche celebrating the DIY shifter in its new 911R and upcoming 911 GT3, and manufacturers including Ford offering three pedals in the Focus RS, Ferrari was asked at last week's Paris motor show whether it too would consider a manual box in future models, perhaps for old times’ sake if nothing else.

The answer, however, was unequivocal. The Prancing Horse’s chief technology officer, Michael Hugo Leiters, said transmission options in Ferraris were strictly predicated on performance – and the old self-shifter just didn’t cut it anymore.

“Technically spoken, no,” he said when asked if the manual would make a return. “Ferrari is design, performance and state of the art technologies. There’s no manual transmission that can beat this performance and therefore we have decided to stay on the double-clutch gearbox.”

Other than manual resale values – which are typically sky-high for late-model Ferraris, particularly the last 599 offered standard with a manual ‘box – marketing chief Nicola Boari argued there was little reason for the Italian manufacturer to change its current strategy.

“The last time Ferrari had the possibility of a manual transmission as a special order was the first version of the California,” he said.

“I’m not sure exactly but I think the total manual order was between three and five cars. It led to the conclusion that if you find one of those five cars in the market the value will be extremely high, but that’s a different subject.”

Ferrari will instead persist with different iterations of its dual-clutch transmissions, which now do service in everything from the entry-level California through to the flagship LaFerrari hypercar.