Ferrari’s fake manual is genius

Last year, Ferrari’s chief marketing and commercial officer, Enrico Galliera, said anyone who desired a three-pedal Ferrari should buy a classic example, as the company had no plans to introduce a modern manual.

A year later virtually to the day, Ferrari has revealed the 12Cilindri Manuale, so it appears Mr Galliera might have been skipping some key meetings.

It’s also worth noting that last week Mr Galliera left Ferrari, though reports vary as to whether this was voluntary.

Regardless, Mr Galliera is, in fact, correct. Because, despite the name, the three pedals in the driver’s footwell and the open-gated shifter, the Ferrari 12C M is not a manual in the traditional sense. 

You can stall it, skip gears and there’s not even an auto-blip function to save your blushes, but all this is entirely optional, as there’s no mechanical connection between the gearbox and the aluminium lever protruding from the center console.

The gearbox itself is the same eight-speed dual-clutch as fitted to the regular 12C only now with some clever electronics that allows the driver to operate it as a manual. 

Dip the clutch below 80km/h, select the appropriate gear and control is yours; you have to use the clutch for shifts and if you try and do something you couldn’t do with an actual manual, the computer will quite literally say ‘no’.

Press a button, however, and the gearbox will revert back to automatic operation. The steering wheel paddles have even been deleted.

This ‘by-wire’ arrangement has unsurprisingly whipped plenty of online experts into a lather, complaining that it’s a driving simulator, that Ferrari has lost the plot and the whole thing is a sham.

I disagree. 

In fact, I think it’s extraordinarily clever. 

Ferrari customers don’t actually want a manual; if they did, then they would have kept buying them when they were offered. 

They want an automatic car that they can drive like a manual when they go on a Cavalcade (a Ferrari driving event) or whatnot. The Manuale allows them to have their cake and eat it.

There have been plenty of comments about Ferrari not just installing a proper mechanical manual gearbox. Not only would that eradicate the benefits outlined above, it would have required developing and producing a bespoke gearbox for a tiny number of customers, reengineering the car to accept it and, crucially, re-homologating the car.

As the 12C M still has the same ratios as the regular car (because it’s the same gearbox), its emissions and fuel economy are unchanged.

The things I’m unsure about with the 12C M have nothing to do the technology. 

Australian pricing has yet to be confirmed, but in Europe the Manuale carries a 50 per cent premium over the standard car, so given that lists locally at $803,500 plus on-road costs, you can do the math.

There’s some justification in the fact that the Manuale is a limited-edition car, but 1499 units is a LOT of 12Cs. 

Put it this way, that’s almost as many manuals as Ferrari sold between the California, 599 GTB, 612 Scaglietti, F430 and F575. However, those cars couldn’t do double duty as an automatic. So this new Manuale is clearly a bit special.

On the other hand, should Ferrari sell them all (which it undoubtedly will), 1499 cars at €590,000 apiece is nigh-on €885,000,000 in revenue – quite a handsome return on investment.

Perhaps the best thing about the Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale, though, is that it’s the first evidence that the world’s most iconic automotive brand is moving beyond the need to be ever faster, more powerful and more advanced.

After all, it’s spent the past 25 years telling us that its self-shifting gearboxes – whether F1 automated manuals or dual-clutch – are superior in every objective measure. 

Which is true… unless the objective is pure enjoyment.

Join the conversation at our Facebook page
Or email us at editor@carsales.com.au