I was out at Lime Rock Park for the annual Hagerty Bull Market event and got a sneak peek at all the automobiles the knowledgeable crew at Hagerty considered to be either a little undervalued or great ways to get into the hobby. Jason is going to take a swing at the list later, but I was immediately struck by the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder.
First, the bright orange Arancio Borealis paint is impossible to miss, and this Gallardo Spyder even had a matching orange leather cabin. This is about aughts-coded as they come. It’s like a Blink 182 song you can drive. You should get a Livestrong bracelet for buying it. Even the phallic Jaguar E-Type Coupe looked rather subtle and restrained next to the Lambo.
What was the potential reasoning for including a V10-powered raging bull on a list that also includes a Ford Bronco II and a last-gen Honda Prelude? That’s when Hagerty’s data guru Adam Wilcox pointed out an insane fact to me. The kind of fact that one might miss when listening to it wail down the front straight at LRP.
Thankfully, I caught Adam at a quiet moment.
Adam is Mr. Data and, he points out, as an insurer and marketplace Hagerty has a unique perspective:
Typical market analysis across the classic car industry focuses on publicly available auction data. Public auctions result in about 65,000 classic car sales per year. A lot of insight can be gleamed from these sales; however it this is a small slice of the pie and can only tell you what vehicles are worth in the current moment. Since our Bull Market list is predictive in that it points out cars poised to grow in value in the future, looking at recent public sales is only part of the picture when making our selections.
Hagerty pulls in private market data, insurance info, and even shipping logs to come up with an estimate of a vehicle’s value and where that value might go in the future.
What does it tell them about the Lamborghini? If you look at the most similar vehicle, the Ferrari F430, you’ll discover that the value of a #3 Condition base 2009 F430 is worth about $113,000 according to Hagerty. By comparison, a $3 Condition Gallardo LP560-4 is $118,000, so a little more expensive.
How is the more expensive car a better deal? Simple. A manual Ferrari F430 is worth 100% more in any condition, meaning that a #3 Condition manual F430 is worth $226,000. It’s estimated that Ferrari made about 10% of F430s with a manual, while the rest were stuck with the mediocre F1 automated manual.
A manual Gallardo, like the one pictured here, is worth only 50% more, meaning that it’s just $177,000. If this is your first car that’s not a great deal, but the theory is that Gallardos in general and especially manual Gallardos are worth significantly more as a driving experience, as Hagerty’s Aaron Robinson explains:
Lamborghini has always stead-fastly resisted turbocharging (though a whole hot-rodding subculture devoted to stuffing turbos under Gallardo engine covers has sprung up), and it’s wonderful to be reminded that owning a supercar wasn’t always just about 0–60 times and skidpad g’s, it was about the experience.
The irony here, of course, is that the six-speed Graziano gearbox was $10,000 cheaper than the e-Gear automatic when new, meaning if you bought a Gallardo with the e-Gear and held onto it you’d have a car that was more expensive to buy and now worth less. Having driven a manual Gallardo, I agree it’s the best chance of having a religious experience in an Italian work of art without having to fly to the Vatican.
Looking at car sales seems to prove this is the case, with a base F1-equipped F430 selling for $100,000, but an older F430 with a six-speed selling for $221,000. You can play this game all day, but it’s true that the manual is the option you want for any older exotic.
I think this is partially because the automatics of this era are uniquely bad. The old concept, before fancy dual-clutch transmissions, was to merely automate the existing manual transmission and remove this clutch pedal. This is the case with the Ferrari F1 transmission, the Gallardo’s e-Gear, and even BMW’s SMG.
Look at an Aston Martin DB9 of this era and you’ll see that Hagerty estimates a 30% markup for the manual. A newer V1o Audi R8, the twin to the Lamborghini, gets a 20% deduction for the later and better S-Tronic transmission, so this premium seems to be greater with automated manuals, though an M3 with the SMG transmission does get a 25% hit to the value.
What’s wild about this, of course, is that manual versions of non-sports cars or trucks often command less money. Growing up you got the manual as the cheaper option and could charge more for a used Ford Focus, for instance, if it was an automatic because more people could buy it.
The exotic and sports car markets are exactly the opposite as people aren’t buying these cars as regular cars, they’re buying them as an experience. I’m not saying you’ll make a huge amount of money executing some strange transmission-based arbitrage. You probably won’t. But if a manual F430 is worth twice as much, certainly a manual Gallardo at only 50% more is a good deal.
I think the flappy paddle cars will be stuck in a worst-of-both-worlds situation: They will be slower and more expensive to maintain than BEVs (especially once things like solid state and battery replacement progress) but lack the mechanical interaction of true manual transmission cars.
That said, I was pretty impressed with my track day instructor’s flappy paddle Cayman. While not a true Porsche due to its water cooling it was quite impressive.
Also, at least for now, many tracks are banning BEVs, so at least for track days flappy paddle ICE will be the fastest option.
I’ve driven five cars and two farm tractors with manual transmissions.
I have never driven a Ferrari or Lambo with a gated shifter. So, what was the deal with those? Were the transmissions so delicate/fragile that a slightly misaligned shift would destroy them? I’m genuinely curious about what that feels like and what was the point.
Did Ford or Chevy ever gate their shifters to pick up some misguided aura of Italian exotica?
In my Datsun 510, I could downshift without the clutch for five years without breaking anything.
In my 2001 Jetta, the shifter was a bit notchy, but I always found the right gear.
The only near disaster was in an ’86 Nissan pickup when I tried to downshift from 5th to 4th coming off the freeway but accidentally caught 2nd. As the unladen rear started to slew sideways on the (thankfully) wet pavement and the engine revs climbed rapidly, I put the clutch back in before any harm was done.
I mean, is it any surprise?
In the 1980s and 1990s, the roofs of many Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona coupés were mercilessly snipped away and the soft-top convertible system installed. This was because the factory-built Spyder commanded more value than the coupé due to low production figure of 122 built.
Fast forward, the specialists like this one have successfully analysed and reverse-engineered the latest Ferrari models with manual gearboxes that were more or less identical to the automatic gearboxes. From there, they developed the process of converting gearboxes to manual, installing the necessary components from 3D printing or genuine factory parts, and reprogramming the software. Hoovies Garage has one that he converted to manual gearbox for tens of thousands of dollars.
Case in point: the last Ferrari V12 model with manual gearbox was 599 GTB Fiorano. Only 30 were made with most going to the United States. This one was offered for $850,000 in 2020. One is still for sale in Belgium for almost €700,000.
I don’t understand all the hate for modern automatics. I get the old ones sucked and manuals were the better choice for both performance and longevity, but we’re at a point now where the automatics outperform what a human can do with a manual. Not to mention the ridiculous torque values and corresponding clutch pedal effort needed to accommodate it. At the high end, manuals don’t even make sense anymore.
These days “I went with the manual” is nothing more than automotive snobbery. The notion that it’s better to get a less capable version of the vehicle for “a better experience” just doesn’t make sense to me.
Granted my weekend toy is only a six speed manual Miata and I’ll likely never have the means to play in the high end realm, but if I did, I don’t imagine I’d be naive enough to kneecap the vehicle’s performance by injecting myself into the drivetrain. But I guess that’s just me.
The entire point of supercars is automotive snobbery.
Fair point, but there’s also the old adage “if you know, you know”. There’s showing off to the uninformed, and then there’s showing off to the informed. I guess your point is supercars are all about showing off to the former. I’d rather put my efforts towards impressing the latter.
A manual supercar appeals to both the former and the latter. General public goes “wow a Lambo” and the enthusiast peeps in and sees the gated manual.
And I see a gated manual (er, driver) that hinders the vehicle’s performance. I’d go wow, but for a different reason.
This from a man who, in early 2024, approved the corporate purchase of a Pontiac Aztek.
Some people have to go from A to B. And that’s fine. They get a car for that purpose.
There are others that prefer fun and a challenge getting from A to B. No manual, no fun IMO.
And there are some people in both camps, so two cars is the way to go.
I find that the manual version of just about anything worth having is worth more today. Those of us who prefer them will pay it. It might take longer to sell, but you’ll sell it for more.
Ordering my ’11 e91 BMW wagon with RWD and a stick was one of the smarter decisions I ever made – another car where the good version is worth 2X+ all day long vs the usual AWD automatic. And 6spd AWD wagons are worth rather more than automatics too. My ’95 5spd Land Rover Disco is the same – easily 2X and more for one of the very rare not-automatics in the US. In both cases, something less than 500 sold here.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not much mention of a huge driver in manual desirability in these things – maintenance costs. Those single-clutch automated manuals can render 5-figure bills quite regularly, especially if they aren’t driven ‘as recommended’. I know the people here would all rather have a manual, but, I think the potential maintenance headaches are as big of a factor in used desirability (i.e. cost) as driving enjoyment.
It seems there are enough rich idiots that don’t know crap about cars that anyone can make good money selling them kit cars. Really today’s technology bros are the Coronal Klink and Sgt Shultz of the car world.
“I’m not saying you’ll make a huge amount of money executing some strange transmission-based arbitrage”
Step 1: buy cheapest F430 on AutoTrader
Step 2: swap in 5-speed from Copart Fiat 500
Step 3: profit?
This is one of the big reasons why C5 Corvettes have such a wide ask – offer spread: so many of them are autos.
The other reason is of course that their owners from a certain age group truly believe they’re sitting on gold/know what they got so no way are they lowering that price.
Hey now, this is one of only 30 corvettes built by Ol’ One Thumb Tom on the third Wednesday of July during a leap year! No tire kicking.
A manual C5 has always been on my shortlist for an eventual weekend car but boy is the market for them weird as all hell. I also don’t have the numbers in front of me but it feels like 3/4s of them or more are autos…and those 90s/2000s GM 4 speeds are bleak.
After having browsed plenty of C5 and C6 listings on Facebook and craigslist, I’ve come to the conclusion the only logical way to buy a C5/C6 is from an auction, or from an enthusiast under the age of 50. Auctions tend to hold to real market value, and younger people tend to be much more realistic on pricing than the cliché New Balance and Jort wearing retirees that thing every corvette is worth 40% over blue book value.
I think it was Hagerty itself that first noticed the situation, and even made your point about the age effects – that the older owners’ cars were completely paid for and basically just sat in the garage. Unlike younger enthusiasts looking to move on/get other cars, they have little incentive to deal, so we end up with the mismatch we see today.
I do remember articles on the topic going around a year or two ago, along the lines of that many many corvettes are no longer being driven, bought, or sold, because the aging ownership pool thinks that every 50k mile auto C5 convertible is worth 20k, when they’re just not because there are so many out there. Same deal on pricing goes for the 2000s Ford GT, the price break for a higher mileage example is not a massive percentage like some cars because there are just so many with under 1k and 5k miles on them available.
And for a lot of younger buyers who grew up salivating after high-strung WRXs and Lancers, there’s little interest in an old V8 sportscar.
The truly funny generational impact here are people from mine – gen X – who look at the cars our collective fathers/relatives bought and wonder “ugh why didn’t he get a manual…I don’t really want this…”
Performance numbers become dated* and a car that’s about numbers alone gets boring before the numbers date, but experiences are timeless. Though, I agree that there are other effects at play here, like the early automated manuals being especially bad, but also the greater rarity of the manual option that appeals to a certain type of collector whether or not they even drive their cars. Traditionally, though—even at the low end—for sports or sports-type performance cars, the manual has often been worth more. For a car that’s about the experience, people want the experience.
Often, they’ve been the better choice in lower end cars because they were cheaper, made the best of a smaller engine, and the transmissions were far more robust. Personal example: I had a ’12 Focus 5 speed. It was as reliable as a Corolla, but much better to drive and with better mileage for over 200k miles (totaled). Not many DCTs get anywhere near 200k on their original transmission.
*Historically. I would posit that—thanks to EVs—we have reached a point at even the mid range of the price scale where there is no more meaningful gains to be had as the capabilities exceed both driver and ability to apply them in the real world. Perhaps, the experience will be the next selling point? Probably not (or probably an artificial one), but I suppose it’s possible.
Very well put, esp. your ultimate point about the real world, where driving for many is increasingly crowded and slow-going.
Motorcycles hit this point awhile back where it basically became all about theoretical bragging rights. As in, it’s easy to acquire a literbike that’ll provide sensory inputs faster than your brain is capable of processing, much less directing your body to act on them.
I too wonder if a future flex may be bare-bones, hard-core manual everything cars that are made in small enough numbers to skirt whatever safety regs are present, conveying the “you can’t do this” badassery that would come now with say being able to drive a Model T.
I can drive a Model T. It’s literally so easy that anyone who has never driven a car before can learn to do it in about 3 minutes. It’s unlearning muscle memory that can be a little bit of an issue for people who know how to drive a car already, but it’s certainly neither hard nor particularly complex.
I can also drive a 45ft coach with a 10spd non-syncro transmission. That is a LOT harder than a Model T even if all the pedals do what you expect them to do. Sort of. 🙂
The focus dual clutch can struggle to hit 20k before grenading
Ford’s Autoshit transmission was about the best advertisement for buying a manual ever made.
Nah… it’s called the PowerShit, not Autoshit.
Shit either way.
Manual Supremacy!
In regular cars, yes. Enthusiast cars are way more valuable in stick, however. You see this on the secondhand market all the time. For example in 10 years I’ll bet the Blackwings will have a similar spread in value with auto vs. manual despite the fact that the GM 10 speed is hardly the buzzkill that an early auto manual/F1 transmission usually is.
That being said there are some people who claim the auto manuals get too much hate and are actually fun and engaging if you know how to drive them…which is to basically treat them like a clutch less manual transmission and let off the throttle when shifting. Doug is one of them, for what it’s worth.
Yup. Automatic Miatas generally command a couple grand less than a stick. Even Jeep Wranglers (YJ and TJ era) tend to trade for 4-5k more with a 5 speed because the 3 speed autos were so bad.
Porsches are the same way, even with PDK which by all accounts is a world class transmission. I would absolutely pay the premium for a manual 911/Cayman/Boxster over a Tiptronic one….but PDK or manual is a tougher choice. I know some hardcore Porschephiles who’ve chosen PDK over stick so it must be pretty special.
A friend showed me the spread of how bad the gap is in audi r8s between manual values and automatic values, and that car’s transmission actually works. It’s insane
Don’t the R8s have DCTs? That’s where the cost delta gets trickier for me personally. I’m admittedly not a manual diehard like some enthusiasts are but I do care about how well a transmission works in the contest of a powertrain.
With enthusiast cars from the mid 2000s and earlier a manual is pretty much mandatory across the board, but once DCTs and planetary autos were introduced it becomes a case by case thing for me. Would I think it’s worth it to pay 5 figures more for a manual car that also has a really good automatic option?
Probably not. I’ve daily’d DCTs for years and they’re a great middle ground for me personally since I live in DC and traffic sucks ass but I do enjoy taking manual control on the track and backroads. Plus a good DCT will offer more feedback than people think.
But in the context of like…a Miata or Toyobaru? If you don’t want the manual you should consider a different car. Or a WRX? Of course I’m not fucking buying the CVT lol.
R8s have been made with both single-clutch (R-Tronic) and dual-clutch (S-Tronic) automatics. S-Tronic came out the last few years of the first generation. S-Tronic is really, really good – it’s a 7-speed DCT just like the lower-level Audis or Porsche PDK. I drove one for awhile – would I rather have a manual? Yeah, probably. Would I pay significantly more for a manual? Not really. Only thing that would sway me would be potential maintenance issues.
That’s the second reason I didn’t buy a Miata (the first being it’s too small to daily now that I’m engaged and have a second person to worry about). I’ve half-joked the last couple years I’ll need knee surgery before I can drive a manual again, but we seem to have arrived at that moment early.
The auto in my 3 isn’t a DCT, but I can still absolutely throw it in M and it’s a totally different experience. It’s why I have my work cut out for me when I get around to rotary swapping it in a few years. Adapters exist for all kinds of transmissions, but most focus on front engine, RWD. I need to do some research and find something with paddles that will also work for the mid-engine, RWD setup I actually want. Anything with a clutch pedal is out. A rotary that can’t be manually shifted feels like a sin.
Hollinger is hilariously out of budget or I’d already have my answer.
Manual Focuses and Fiestas are worth more than the dual clutch ones
Whoa buddy and with that Ford power shift or whatever the hell it’s called DCT they damn well should be
The decline of the manual transmission is the first sign of the apocalypse. It’s right there in the Book of Rev Elation.
Canopy, you’re a true gem. COTD is really Canopysaurus of the Day.
COTD
Perhaps a note to automakers, I’d be willing to pay a premium to get a manual transmission in a vehicle – just to have the option. One that, sadly, has been taken away from so many cars & trucks.
Much like that person that perpetually loves winter/snow and never complains of the cold – I’ve never complained once about having to be stuck in traffic with a third pedal.
Though, I will admit, it is super-un-fun with a hydraulic hand clutch on a motorcycle – that gets tiring quick.
You and me both. I’ll pay even more to buy a new car sans idiot screens.
“Though, I will admit, it is super-un-fun with a hydraulic hand clutch on a motorcycle – that gets tiring quick.”
That’s God’s way of indicating to world that lane filtering should be legal worldwide.
Sometimes I toy with the idea of converting my MR2 Spyder from the SMT to manual. Popping off shifts with the buttons on the wheel is pretty cool, but I would love to row my own. And to the point of this article, it would probably increase the value of the car.
Although in the case of a slightly ratty MR2 Spyder, the difference in value would likely be less than the cost of making the change.
Emotionally worth it? Yes. Financially worth it? No.
There’s also something to be said for keeping a functioning SMT going. There aren’t that many Spyders anyway, and many of the SMT cars have died or been converted. So one that works well has its own appeal, even if the engagement isn’t quite the same. No-lift shift and rev matching in a car from 2003 is pretty cool!
Cheaper to bin a STi doing that.
Or find a manual already paired to a 2zz. Swap the whole thing and, boom!, poor man’s Elise.
Didn’t I read that the manumatic in the Mister Twos really saps performance over the manual?
It just doesn’t shift super fast, and you can’t launch it. So yes it hurts the 0-60 time quite a bit but once you are moving makes much less of a difference. On the flip side, you can keep your foot planted on the accelerator, and it also has rev-matching for the downshifts.