The Hottest Thing In Cars Is The Manual Transmission

It used to be that you couldn’t get a real sports car or supercar without a manual transmission. Now the opposite is becoming true. Manual cars are becoming rarer which means, inevitably, that manual transmission cars are now super valuable. A quick look at the upcoming Monterey auctions shows cars with three pedals are where it’s at this year.

What’s the opposite of a ’90s sports car with a manual transmission? Possibly a new Rivian, which is neither particularly manual nor highly desirable at the moment. The electric SUV/truck-maker thinks it’ll hit its sales target for the year after a dip in the third quarter, but that’s still not a huge number.

Honda more than blew through its quarterly projections due in large part to a strong desirability for hybrids, a lower yen, and other factors. In fact, Honda is doing so well that ex-Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi CEO Carlos Ghosn is claiming that Honda is looking to steal his old company.

It’s another hump day Morning Dump and this one should be fun.

Monterey Car Week… More Like Manual-rey Car Week, AMIRITE?

That joke didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but you get the general idea.

Many years ago I was editor of a small automotive media concern called Jalopnik and I had a columnist you’ve also probably never heard of named Chris Harris. He wrote a piece for me that said, essentially, the death of manuals was overrated and that, in fact, manual transmissions would eventually be the more valuable option.

This was ten years ago, around the launch of the Porsche Cayman GT4 and his belief was that the GT4 was extremely important as a harbinger of a rethink in performance vehicles:

No, seriously – the GT4 is a massively important test-case for the future viability of the manual transmission. It sows the seed of a new generation of drivers’ cars that speak a language of interaction and not lap-times. This I think will be the new performance niche for the dominant brands, and it makes perfect sense on two important levels. It allows them to move the conversation away from ever decreasing lap times at the Nurburgring – something that needs to happen as soon as humanly possible. And it introduces the concept of low-volume ‘specials’ as viable money-making opportunities.

In the neo-manual phase, the stick will become the chronograph to the digital watch of the early 1980s – not as technically good on an Excel spreadsheet, but way more desirable. And capable of supporting a premium price.

Chris was correct. He was sometimes correct and I think he was able to take his abilities to some regional British television show, if memory serves. He was talking about new cars, primarily, and I think the success of both the 911R and Gordan Murray cars, as well as the general lack of success of the Rimac Nivera and Pininfarina Battista tend to back this theory up.

This trend isn’t just limited to new cars, either, I was listening to Hannah Elliott and Matt Miller talk about the upcoming Monterey auction in their latest podcast and Hannah made the point that one big trend in auctions right now are manual sports cars. Matt also pointed out the general lack of desirability of that generation (or any generation) of automatic cars, especially calling out the Ferrari F1 transmission and the strange Aston Martin sportshift automated manual.

In her Monterey preview for Bloomberg, Hannah made a similar point, and quoted an investor in Singer:

The current push for electric vehicles has only served to increase enthusiasts’ appetite for increasingly scarce manual-gearbox, internal combustion, roaring and rumbling sports cars…

I think that’s quite true and a quick look at the lots up at Monterey this year show a lot of manual Ferraris and AMG products. I think the most telling description is of this 2010 Aston Martin DBS Volante at RM:

First, DBS. The inaugural DBS arrived in 1967, toward the tail end of Aston Martin’s crucial David Brown era, as a muscular yet elegant tourer. The DBS nameplate was revived in 2007; true to form, it was an imposing machine wrapped in instant-classic styling. Motivation came from a 510-horsepower version of the company’s 5.9-liter V-12, which could be paired with either six-speed manual or six-speed automatic gearboxes.

It could be paired with a six-speed manual transmission. You have to get all the way to the bottom to find out that this beautiful example, unfortunately, wasn’t.

Rivian Is Doing Fine, Thank You For Your Concern

As Lucid has Saudi Arabia, Rivian now has a helpful pater in Volkswagen. Based on the company’s latest financial report it’s going to need the assistance.

From the shareholder letter:

Rivian produced 9,612 vehicles and delivered 13,790 vehicles during the second quarter of 2024. As expected, production was impacted by plant downtime associated with the retooling upgrade. As a result, deliveries exceeded production as we significantly reduced inventory of our first generation R1 trucks and SUVs. In addition, despite the vast majority of R1 deliveries in the quarter being first generation R1 vehicles, we continued to see the impacts of our cost initiatives and experienced an improvement in gross profit per vehicle delivered in the second quarter as compared to the first quarter of 2024. The plant is now in the process of ramping production of the second generation R1.

Basically, the company had to slow down production and try to offload its first-gen trucks while it tried to tweak its existing lines to make the more profitable “second generation” R1. This helped the company lose less money, but now that inventories are low it’s going to likely have a down quarter as it rebuilds.

Honda Is Doing Better Than Fine, Thank You For Noticing

While the yen may be going back up after a little BOJ intervention, Japanese exporters are still in a great position to grab profits. Honda, in particular, had its most profitable quarter ever as people continued to buy the company’s hybrid vehicles.

Overall, Honda thinks it’ll sell about 1 million hybrids in 2024, one of which they sold to me. So I get it.

From Automotive News:

Profit in the April-June quarter rose 23 percent to 485 billion yen ($3.3 billion), thanks to steady demand for cars in the U.S. and strong two-wheeler sales in India and Brazil, Honda said Aug. 7.

The company also cited a weak yen as a reason for its strong results. The automaker kept its outlook unchanged at 1.42 trillion yen.

China remains a challenge for Honda, though strong sales in the United States are keeping the company’s exports above water in the first half of the year.

Ghosn: The Honda-Nissan-Mitsubishi Deal Is A ‘Disguised Takeover’

Fugitive ex-Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi CEO Carlos Ghosn has crawled out of his transport box and climbed onto his soap box in order to decry the news that Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi are entering into a big joint venture to try to prep for a future of software-defined vehicles and electric cars.

Hans Greimel spoke with Ghosn and here’s what the man himself had to say:

Ever since rebalancing the alliance with Renault last year to gain independence, Nissan has resembled a company “trying to find a savior,” Ghosn said. “Signing an agreement with Honda looks like an initiative of trying to turn attention away from the miserable results.”

Ghosn was once Nissan’s savior and you can sense a little saltiness in this statement given that a small cabal of Nissan employees conspired to have him tossed in jail. He added:

“I can’t imagine for one moment how it’s going to work between Honda and Nissan unless it’s a takeover, unless it’s a disguised takeover by Honda of Nissan and Mitsubishi with Honda in the driver’s seat,” Ghosn said. “It’s going to be a takeover, a disguised takeover.”

Does Carlos Ghosn read TMD? If he does, holler at yer boy. This is just a more conspiratorial take on what I said last week, which is that Honda should just take over Nissan and Mitsubishi to make one company:

A consolidated Nissan and Honda bring engineering and manufacturing scale without the huge culture clash. I also don’t think their products are so similar that they can’t work in concert. Nissan/Mitsubishi have a truck competency that Honda lacks whereas Honda is way better at building hybrids.

I say do it!

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

I have sensed some friction in the comments over The Last Dinner Party which, admittedly, has such a cohesive schtick that it can sometimes feel a touch pastiche. I say: who cares? It’s a good schtick and they rock. This cover of Blondie’s “Call Me” for Like A Version is great.

The Big Question

How much more is a used sports car/sedan/supercar with a manual worth to you than an identical car with an automatic transmission?