So no one wants a manual | FerrariChat

So no one wants a manual

Discussion in 'General Automotive Discussion' started by boxerman, Mar 5, 2015.

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  1. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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  2. txitalia

    txitalia Formula Junior

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    You would think they would have gotten the hint by now. As much as I LOVE the look of the new 991 GT3 I have absolutely NO INTEREST in purchasing a PDK one!

    It's why I drive an F430 and not 458 - three pedal manuals for me!

    It's why I turbo charged my Gallardo 6 speed instead of getting a Hurracan.

    I guess I'll just be an old dinosaur who refuses to give up his manual trannies.
     
  3. Bullfighter

    Bullfighter Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Did they have trouble moving the 991 GT3's?
     
  4. Bas

    Bas Four Time F1 World Champ

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    Wonderful news. Maybe they (and others) will think twice of adding an optional manual box (especially if they already have one, like Porsche obviously does).
     
  5. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    #5 boxerman, Mar 6, 2015
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2015
    Its not backordered as the 997gt3 was, you can get them of the showroom floor starting MSRP. Its not appreciating. A 997GT3 appreciated.
    Two factors, 991 not as production limited, and there is a core, many who track and attend pca events who dont want it. Its not just about how fast you go, I think porche in response to demmand is figuiring that out.

    There are 2-3 types of buyers, 1)those who need and or want their car to be functionaly seamless in traffic and still able to do some track, combined wiht a love of latest tech. 2)Those who buy paper specs adn cant necesarily drive anyway.3) Then there are those who buy sportscars for pure driving pleasure, superlative dynamics and experience, lots of track time and durabiity.

    The one car porche previously made that was superlative as regards criteria 3 was the 997Gt3. Then they expanded the bandwidth to try cover the other factors and lost a significant pecentage of the core.

    Ferrari might also catch a clue here. The fact thta very few people ordered a cali with stick, and cali is the mercedes sl of ferraris does not mean no one wanted a stick. Hence the premium paid for stick 360 and 430's.

    If pure speed on the street is the factor its hard to beat and amg e-class. Lots of peopel wwant their sprtscars to not only be cpable but also supremly entertaining, for many of us eps, pdk etc detract from entertainment or skill utilization which is part of the entertainment.

    Or maybe put another way, most people wnat the latesta nd greates. Some people want a synthesis of evrythign that makes and amde driving a "sportscar" great in a new package. These some people are if we look at challenger vette BMw m series sales soem 30-40% of the market.
     
  6. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    I was one of those bozos that just HAD to have a manual 430 Spider
    very, very rare car
    had a difficult time selling/giving it away
    maybe it was the color :)
    many talk a good game about the lack of manuals, etc, but when it's time to belly up to the bar and put down the cash......try and find them
     
  7. Zook

    Zook Rookie

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    Because the GT3 is supposed to be built solely for performance; and the PDK is simply better. They can use the GT4 to be more of an 'enthusiastis's toy'.

    ps. I'm a manual enthusiast.
     
  8. Zook

    Zook Rookie

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    Because the GT3 is supposed to be built solely for performance; and the PDK is simply better. They can use the GT4 to be more of an 'enthusiastis's toy'.

    ps. I'm a manual enthusiast
     
  9. Bullfighter

    Bullfighter Two Time F1 World Champ
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    I agree. I think we get more of the purist crowd here - people who lament the end of carburetters (because they sound great but deliver inferior performance) and three-pedal manuals (because they're fun but deliver inferior performance) -- than you'll see in a market where real buyers spend real money.

    I love having a three-pedal manual on my 308, but that's a borderline vintage car at this point. (And my Porsche is very vintage.) By the same token, love the DCT on my Audi and think it would be weird for a 458 to have anything less. Porsche needs to step up with the GT4 RS and offer their best.

    This.

    Although I admit it annoys me that every Porsche you can buy isn't the best they can build. I don't see why I should spend $60K on a Boxster/Cayman and not get the full 320 bhp. The cost curve doesn't make sense.
     
  10. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    I absolutely loved the manuals in my 328,355 & 430
    I was convinced I would not enjoy the DCT in the 458........WOW, was I wrong!!
    Agree that now it's hard for me to imagine the 458 having anything else..who knew :)
     
  11. zudnic

    zudnic Formula 3

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    Most automatics 20 or so years ago, not good. The only decent automatic was in the 928 or 560SL back then. If they offered the same auto's of today, back in the 308 era, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
     
  12. Bullfighter

    Bullfighter Two Time F1 World Champ
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    They are better today, but you're still not in control of gear changes. Nothing close to the DCT. (Especially Porsche -- their PDK is probably the best manual box available.)

    Why the C7 Corvette only offers an automatic or three-pedal manual at its price point is hard to justify. Audi offers it in cars costing $10K less. Maybe an advantage of being part of the VW empire.
     
  13. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    430 manual and 360 manual sell at a 15-20% premium. Maybe ferraris are just mass produced jewlery and after afew years of the gotta have the latest model thing wears off they become used like any other car.

    Yes yellow is harder to sell than red. .
     
  14. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    Yep people hate mnauals so much porche couldnt sell the Gt4 manual only, oh wait its sold out before any car even delivered. I call that pent up demand.

    Poepel wont buy a manual thats why chev cant sell z06's and why 30% of regular C7s are manual, why 40% of M4s are why 40% of challengers are.

    Maybe people who like to drive and have a car for fun on weekends, you know the type of people who dont expect their fun car to double as daily in traffic, or dont drive in traffic anyway, those people prefer manuals, because well like a great steering system its interactive more fun and requires skill, which makes it more rewarding.
     
  15. ralfabco

    ralfabco Two Time F1 World Champ
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    A stripped GT4 RS 6spd would be really kewl.

    No AC and NAV :).
     
  16. Bullfighter

    Bullfighter Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Sorry, a lot of these threads come across as insinuating that the whole world wants three-pedal manuals and that manufacturers aren't listening. That's obviously wrong. There's a waiting list for new Ferrari 458s, and they're all dual clutch. 100 percent sold before they're built, zero manual clutch pedals. When F430s were available new, relatively few of them went out the door with three-pedal manuals, even at a discount.

    As to Boxster/Caymans, those have always had three-pedal manuals, and the Cayman has been a pretty slow seller. The GT4 looks like a very good package, with more power, but the gearbox is probably the least new/interesting thing about the car, other than how it automatically blips the throttle for you -- which doesn't sound terribly manual, IMHO. More Nissan Z. I'm surprised the purists aren't out with torches and pitchforks.

    DCT manuals remove a mechanical constraint -- lapse in power delivery -- in the same way radial tires added grip. A manual clutch pedal is just an inferior tool, now gradually being relegated to trucks. If you enjoy manipulating an extra pedal and coping with looser tires, that's fine, and there is entertainment in it. As I posted, I bought a Porsche 356 six years back knowing it was more about driving fast in a slow car, etc. It is an entertaining car to drive - very vintage. It takes a lot of skill to keep the engine in its tiny power band and the tail behind you.

    But a proper DCT gearbox is equally rewarding in the right car and yes, you really do need to know what you're doing on a challenging road. That's a skill you can only acquire by learning to drive a DCT manual-equipped car, where speeds are probably going to be higher and reactions have to be quicker. I watch Alonso, Raikkonen, Vettel and other drivers and couldn't care less that they're not pressing a third pedal. They're absolutely skilled, and the lesser drivers can't keep up with them -- nothing to do with clutch pedals and levers. We have some roads in southern California that are tailor made for DCT-equipped sports cars. It is an adrenalin rush.

    Enjoy your older cars -- I enjoy mine. But these threads are getting repetitive. The 458, in particular, is an awesome piece of work.
     
  17. V-TWELVE

    V-TWELVE Formula 3

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    #18 V-TWELVE, Mar 10, 2015
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
    I've said it before, manufactures go where the money is. If there were money to be made with manuals, they'd be building them. Manuals are probably becoming quite a headache for manufactures tying to meet fuel economy targets and really not worth offering for the handful of people who ACTUALLY buy them. There is a market for manuals, it's just really small and shrinking.
     
  18. ralfabco

    ralfabco Two Time F1 World Champ
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    How old are the typical buyers who fill out the order form for a new F car ? Most old men do not like to shift. Quite a few F owners do not even bother to drive on the club fun run. Attending breakfast was a different story. The 911/Cayman/Corvette buyers are younger.
     
  19. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    Lets also add the 90% of new F-car owners who buy to display wealth and pose, couldnt drive for ****.
     
  20. V-TWELVE

    V-TWELVE Formula 3

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    Corvette buyers are young if you consider 61 young.
     
  21. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    I find the 458 totaly boring to drive unbless at 9/10ths and above, that is malady of many moderns which try to be "useable" and also fast on track, the transmisison is not the only culprit.

    Fact is the minority buy 3 pedals, its not the prefered option of the "majority" measured by sales numbers. Its also a fact that most sportscars today are costume jewlery for their owners and that in a speed enforced world the sportscar goes no faster than a minivan. Therefore a car that looks like a sportscar and works like a lexus is a big seller, if on occasion a few people or magazine testers can show this sporscar has a great one lap tack time, if the hp numbers are high and paper specs great then it sells to a wide bandwidth orf people.

    Most sporstcar buyers never use the performance, they just like to know what it could do. In this enviroement of traffic and posing pdk is great, a is eps and a whole host of other aids.

    Its also true pdk is going to be faster on track, just look how many shifts you do per lap, shorten that shift time radicaly and the laptime is that much quicker, 7 gears shifted in millisecnds even in a staright line is going to be "faster" than 6 gears shifted by a human. Its also why an auto vette is quicker than a manual one. But what is the goal, speed for speeds sake or entertainment?

    There is a core who also buy sportsacrs, especialy the more viceral faster one, they do it primarily for the drivign experience and enetainment , some of these people like paddles, and some like the greater involvment and skill of manual. 30% of total sales is not miniscule, and I woudl bet you that of people who track the percenatges are more like 80% mnaual 20% pdk, at least thats what I see with street driven cars at the track.

    No one is saying that manual is THE prefered option, but we are sayign that for some, those who drive a car primarily for enetrtainment its the prefered option. Nor does thta mean thta in a high po performance casrs PDK cannot be fun. Look ata GT3, you cant doa 9k redline with a manaul.

    Sometimes I think paddle people are insecure about their desire or need for a paddle so default to speed arguements or insult those that prefer a manual, it alsmost like they would ban manauals if they could just to validate their choice or default to percentages arguements to say the mnaaul is dead. Wellits not dead, its found its secure footing at 30% overall for sprtscars and a higher percentage for the core. .

    Fact is porche designed a car which is manual only, and specificaly according to them because of the howling cries from the faithful. Its a car that is sold out and sucessful beyond expectations even though its way slower than a Gt3.

    That indicates that contrary to ferrari numbers there is a healthy robust market for properly designed manuals, in oter words one designed with great controls for the type of person who drives for pelasure and even goes tot he track.

    BMW who offer great paddles and manauals on ther M cars have a very significant manual takeup too.

    Grain alcohol gets you trashed quicker than a fine glass of wine, beer is different to wine, some of us like to savour the experience differetly. A hooker gets you laid quicker, its harder to meet and woo a hot woman, quicker is not always better, but it can be easier.

    Peaople make different choices and prefer different things. Porche decided to take the GT3 high tech, they felt they had to respond to the market for paper numbers. A core group, the type who bought Gt3s when others thought them too hard and difficult felt abandoned, those people now have a cayman.

    When I go to the track, I see way way more manuals than paddles, because for most of us we are not racing to the nth degree, we are just building skills and enjoyign the experience of operating a fine machine at speed, to us paddles and nannies take away from that, for soem the extra speed of paddles and lower distraction on shifting adds to the experience.

    Yes paddles for sportscars where there is choice is 70%. Its also true that in that 70% are commuters and peopel who just have a sportscar as fashion.
    Of those who really really drive my guess is manuals may be prefered or its 50/50. Clearly its a market porche decided it needed to serve with ahrd core car again. As in the case of the Gt3 they said they can only do the powertran one way.

    Those who buy a GT3 can rest easy knowing theuy have the fastest most powerfuland useabale na porche, and those buying a GT4 can be happy knowing they bought a car designed for driving pleasure over outright paper spec. Each is valid in its own way, it does not have to be either or, which is what paddle people always seem to propogate.
     
  22. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    Thats the 70% who buy the autos.
     
  23. Bullfighter

    Bullfighter Two Time F1 World Champ
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    What is your basis for this idea that anyone wants to ban manuals?

    You seem to be arguing that manufacturers are conspiring to take them away against our will. They're actually listening to us and reading the sales reports.

    I think many or most of us own or have owned and driven both types of manuals. The facts are that dual clutch manuals offer better performance and better efficiency, are now the motor sports standard, and that many of us enjoy them -- a different experience than three-pedal manuals. The rubbish about insecurity, manhood, etc., happens every time automotive technology improves. There are probably a few old men out there reading this who think we're all limp-wristed because we don't drive 'crash' gearboxes.
     
  24. Craigy

    Craigy Formula 3

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    Bruh, just go buy yourself a car with a stickshift. Put your order in for the Cayman GT4. Put your money where your mouth is.

    There is no need to trash talk dual clutches, no need to stereotype owners as poseurs, no need to make some sort of comparisons to cheap liquor and hookers.
     

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