Almost Like Driving

Longtime Readers will know of my dislike of things that automate the way we operate machinery, whether semi-auto instead of bolt-action rifles, auto-wind over manually-wound watches, and automatic over stick shift gearboxes in cars.

Note that I’m not saying there’s much wrong with the above automated operations, but just stating a personal preference:  I like the feeling of working a rifle’s bolt action, winding a watch and driving a manual transmission.  I know that this preference puts me at odds with, well, most of the adult population of the world, but I’ve never cared much for other people’s preferences anyway.  And yes, I prefer the female body shape of Kelly Brook over that of (say) any slender supermodel, and I’m in the distinct minority there, too.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the manual operation thing.

One of the trends in car buying these days seems to be a growing preference among collectors for cars that are… less complicated than the typical offering offered by manufacturers like Ferrari.  It seems that there’s a trend towards buying older, second-hand models that are less complicated simply because the newest models don’t offer a simpler option.  (To give just one such example:  as little as a couple of years ago, you were able to buy a low-mileage 1997 Porsche 911/993 Carrera with a stick shift for less than $100,000.  Today?  $160,000.  And this is also true of models like the Ferrari 550 Maranello manual, preferred according its pricing over the F1-transmissioned variant of the same model.)

So now you have an automatic transmission, for example, as the sole option for driving a new car, and hybrid engines (gasoline-driven engines plus battery-powered motors) are the sole propulsion choice.

I know, I know:  modern automatic transmissions change gears far more quickly than anyone could do with a stick shift, so they’re more efficient.  This assumes, of course, that efficient gear changing is the sine qua non of pleasurable driving, and that the loss of control thereby is of no consequence.  Well, quick gear changes are great if you’re racing on a track, and automatic transmissions are preferable to stick shifts if you’re driving in heavy, stop-start traffic during the morning commute.  I’m not going to argue that point, because the truth is self-evident.

Anyway, Porsche once decreed (with typical Teutonic arrogance) that they would do away with manual transmissions altogether for their new 911 models — if you wanted to drive a stick shift, they sniffed, you could drive the much-inferior 718 (Boxster and Cayenne) instead.  And then they were astonished when sales of the 718 outstripped the 911, despite the cheaper 718’s inferior engines and inefficient manual shift operation.

Speaking of arrogance:  Ferrari noted the above trend, so they decided to offer a manual transmission in their latest model, the 12Cilindri (Twelve Cylinders*), as the “Manuale”.  In typical Ferrari fashion, they’re only going to make a few (1,499) of this model, to drive up the price and desirability thereof among Ferrari groupies and the Stupid Rich [considerable overlap].

But did anyone think that they’d put an actual manual gearbox into the 12?  Silly rabbits:  they’ve overlaid a “drive by wire” operation onto their standard automatic transmission — in other words, making it a transparent SIM gearbox that feels like you’re rowing through the gears, but aren’t, really.  And only for the first six gears, withal.  After that, the auto gearbox takes over (at more than 196 mph).  (196 mph?  WTF?)

And needless to say, the fake manual gearbox isn’t cheap:  the Manuale costs over $200,000 more than the regular 12Cilindri’s $600,000+.

So how does the Manuale drive?  Let’s have Jason Cammisa tell us.  (Like most of Jason’s videos, it’s excellent and well worth the viewing.)

And by the way, the 12Cilindri is pretty good-looking and produces (an unusable) 800+ horsepower, so it’s not all bad.  And it’s not a Duracell-hybridized engine either.

Still, under “Corporate Greed and Cynicism” in the dictionary you’ll find the Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale.

Vai via.

*Ferrari went with the alphanumeric 12Cilindri, because Dodici Cilindri (“doh-deechi chilindree”) is almost unpronounceable to non-Italian speakers, especially Americans — their primary market — and Ferrari couldn’t trademark it either because it’s a generic term.