JETHRO BOVINGDON
Jethro is celebrating the shift back to manual gearboxes – with one proviso
‘Porsches are about feedback and tacility. They deserve a great manual ’box’
ITHINK IT’S NOW SAFE TO SAY THAT MANUAL gearboxes are back. The new car market is catching up with what the used market has known for years. Simply put, manuals are more fun than paddleshift ’boxes. You might even say that the manual gearbox is absolutely central to all the very greatest driving experiences. If you want a car that enthrals and involves, it just has to have a stick and a clutch pedal. Undeniably, there’s something magical about a great manual ’box. Timeless, simple to operate yet impossible to truly master, mechanical, physical, tactile. They pretty much encompass all the things that we celebrate here at evo in a glorious little microcosm.
How else do you explain the clamour for cars like the 911 R or a GT3 with a stick and a third pedal? The gaping chasm in price between a used 575 Maranello with a gated shifter versus an F1 system? The fact that Pagani is developing a new manual ’box for its next supercar? The amazing engineering lengths that Koenigsegg has gone to in order to create a ’box that mimics a six-speed manual (although I can’t help thinking just sticking a sixspeed manual in the CC850 would have done the trick)? Manuals rule and any car without one is a poorer experience as a result. Fact.
Driving the Porsche Cayman GT4 RS for last month’s cover story only reinforced this position. Its PDK ’box is a very good dual-clutch system. Coupled to a lightweight flywheel, that amazing 4-litre flat-six and super-short ratios, it has unbelievable response, incredible shift times and creates its own sense of character as it chunters around at low speeds, too. There’s the genuine edge and sharpness of a full racing ’box. I missed the wonderful six-speed manual available in the standard GT4 in about seven minutes. I would happily be a few tenths slower around a lap or much slower on a road full of unknown corners, humps, dips and flicks just to have that extra interaction. To be fully in control. And to enjoy the reach of its engine on my own terms instead of being goaded into living in the final 1500rpm just because it’s so easy.
The Honda NSX-R added even greater credence to the theory that manual will always beat paddles. Flicking its beautiful titanium-topped lever between ratios was joyous and unforgettable. I can still feel it, physically feel the weight and the precise action weeks later. And, I’d wager, ten years from now. The Ferrari 458 Speciale and Lamborghini Huracán STO – the other two contenders on that test – also feature dual-clutch ’boxes. Which is where blind devotion to manual gearboxes comes unstuck. Unlike in the GT4 RS, you never think about how you’d love a manual ’box to really bring the package to life. Not even for a millisecond. The satisfying scrape and clack of a traditional Ferrari manual? Who cares? Once you’ve felt the full might of a Speciale, ripped through a few upshifts and felt the raw aggression of downshifts, you’ll quickly decide there is no gearbox more fitting nor more exciting. The Lambo’s, shockingly, is even better. The paddleshift transmission is as defining an ingredient in these cars as the six-speed manual is in the Honda NSX-R. Intense, exciting, deeply physical, endlessly exciting.
This is the great conundrum when it comes to paddleshift versus manual. There is no right or wrong answer. Actually, that’s not true. There is a right and wrong answer, but it changes depending on the car being discussed. Do I crave manual Porsches? Absolutely. Despite the brilliance of PDK they always leave me wanting. Porsches are about feedback and tactility. They deserve a great manual. But, say, a Nissan GT-R? No way. The big, brutish, manic experience of Nissan’s (formerly) blue-collar supercar needs that industrial, heavy-hitting paddleshift ’box. I would love an Aventador manual. That would be fantastic. But the Huracán wouldn’t be the same without its hypnotically accurate dual clutch. Surely a Ferrari 812 Superfast – that most noble of front-engined hyper-gts – needs a gated manual? Nope. Not one bit. I’d sell family members for an Aston DBS Superleggera equipped with a manual transmission, though. Illogical on the face of it, but if you drove them you’d understand instantly.
Manual gearboxes remain something to celebrate. I am delighted that the comeback is seemingly in full swing. I’m fascinated, too, by the clutchless systems developed by Hyundai and, apparently, the likes of Ford. Simple H-pattern gearboxes with no clutch pedal to negotiate. Who knew Sportomatic would ever make a glorious return? However, even as we celebrate cars like the Toyota GR86 and fetishise the next GT3 Touring, it’s important not to fall into lazy clichés that only a manual will do. From the Alpine A110 to the latest Ford Mustang GT500 to the Bugatti Chiron, some cars just wouldn’t be the same without those funny looking things sprouting from behind the steering wheel.