Decades of regulations and innovations have made modern cars safer and more fuel-efficient. It’s great for the average commuter, and has likely saved thousands of lives, but thicker B-pillars, new fuel-saving systems, and complex hybrid systems have made all cars longer, wider, heavier, and more disconnected than ever before. Porsche’s 911 series is still praised as perhaps the best, most manual sports car on the market, and yet only two variants — the Carrera T and the GT3 — are sold with a manual transmission. All of them use electric power steering, the GTS is a hybrid, and the current 992.2 generation is so much bigger and heavier than its predecessors from the 1990s that they may as well be a different category of car. And yet any 911 looks positively petite and manual compared to any modern Ferrari.Ferrari’s last naturally aspirated V8 was the 458 Speciale, unveiled in 2013 — arguably its last truly stunning supercar — and it no longer even sells a mid-engined V8 model. The 296 GTB comes in the same lineage as the 458, and is a handsome car, but uses a V6 hybrid. If you want a Ferrari that came out of the factory with a manual transmission, the newest option available is the entry-level California, first sold in 2008, of which only a couple were ever built with three pedals.It’s no surprise, then, that older Ferraris — with lighter bodies, purer engines, and a more authentic driving experience — have exploded in value, and a thriving aftermarket business now swaps manual gearboxes into them. Meanwhile, for the first time in modern history, dealers are struggling to move new models off the lot.Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale. Courtesy of FerrariBut after years of requests from collectors, Ferrari has finally brought back the manual — sort of. On Friday, Ferrari unveiled the 12Cilindri Manuale — a 1,499-unit limited edition of its front-engined V12 grand tourer, with an all-new transmission. It’s the same eight-speed double-clutch automatic available on the standard 12Cilindri, but it essentially has a manual override mode. You can use it in “Drive,” where it will function like a standard automatic, but if you want to row gears yourself, you get a clutch pedal and a six-speed gated shifter, right at hand. It isn’t actually a manual — like using the paddle override on the standard 12Cilindri, it’s just letting you manually select the gear it will change for you — but Ferrari has done a lot to evoke the feeling. The clutch has a stiff piston in it; the gear-lever mechanism uses a complex series of gears and notches to make it feel like an old-school Ferrari manual; and unlike the paddle controls, you can stall the car or mis-shift, just as you would with an actual manual.It’s a fake manual, but it’s more authentic than the fake gearshifts on electric cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, and it should give customers exactly what they are looking for — the feel of driving the car themselves. It isn’t the first car to try this, either: Koenigsegg built a version for its CC850.Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale. Courtesy of FerrariFerrari 12Cilindri Manuale. Courtesy of FerrariOtherwise, it’s essentially a standard 12Cilindri, except with silver Scuderia shields by default, some pinstriping across the black expanse up front, Manuale-exclusive wheels, and a much heftier price tag. Where the 12Cilindri is widely available in dealerships, starting at about $470,000, this is limited to just 1,499 units and will start at about $675,000 — a roughly 50 percent price hike for what is basically the same car.Ferrari may hope this adds some cool to what has been a poorly performing model, but the real reason is that it will reserve this transmission for limited, special models that command much higher price tags. It wouldn’t be surprising if the next “Icona” car, the SP4, is based on the F80 — with the hybrid system stripped out, this gearbox added, and a $10 million price tag attached.
