Three pedals, still: the sports cars keeping the manual gearbox alive

MOTORING · DRIVING

The clutch pedal has become a statement of intent. Once it was simply how a car worked; now it is a choice a handful of manufacturers still allow, against the logic of quicker automatics, electrification and buyers who no longer ask for it. The cars that keep it are not the fastest on paper. They are the ones that leave something for the driver to do.

The list is shorter in October 2026 than it was at the start of the year. Two familiar names have already left the stage. Five remain, and for most of them the clock is audible.

BMW M: the last stronghold in Munich

BMW M2. The compact M coupé is perhaps the purest proposition in the current BMW range: short, wide and built around a 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight six of 473 hp. In its standard form the six-speed manual comes at no extra cost, and it makes the most of an engine that rewards being held in a gear. The new M2 xDrive arriving for 2027 is automatic only, which makes the rear-drive manual car the one to note.

BMW M3 and M4. The same 473 hp straight six, in a four-door saloon and a coupé, still with a manual, but only in the base rear-wheel-drive versions. BMW has signalled that the next M3 will not offer one, and a 2027 M3 CS Handschalter is widely read as the farewell gesture for the manual saloon. Few cars combine this much pace with this much everyday usefulness and a gear lever.

Stuttgart, Yokohama and Hethel

Porsche 911 Carrera T. Few cars have held a single identity as consistently as the 911, and the Carrera T is its most deliberate expression. In the current 992.2 generation it is manual only: a 3.0-litre twin-turbo flat six of 394 PS, a six-speed gearbox, rear-wheel drive and less weight than the standard Carrera. Porsche’s GT models keep the manual too, the new open GT3 S/C among them, but the Carrera T is the most direct route to the idea of the original.

Nissan Z. The Z draws openly on its ancestors, from the long bonnet to the tail lamps, around a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 of 400 hp. The six-speed manual remains available on the Sport and Performance versions, and for 2027 Nissan has gone further, adding it to the NISMO for the first time, at the request of the people who actually buy these cars.

Lotus Emira. Lotus built its name on lightness and steering feel, and the Emira adds a level of finish the brand once ignored. The V6 version uses Toyota’s supercharged 3.5-litre engine, rated at 400 hp, with a six-speed manual whose exposed linkage makes each change a small mechanical event. It was meant to be the last combustion Lotus; the company has since changed course, but its plans for the next decade point to hybrid power and automatic gearboxes, so this configuration has a horizon.

Two that have already gone

Toyota GR Supra. The fifth-generation Supra was launched as an automatic, and the six-speed manual added later quickly became the version enthusiasts wanted, paired with a 382 hp straight six. Production ended in March 2026 after seven years, with no successor announced. New examples are now a matter of remaining stock; the manual cars will be the ones people search for later.

BMW Z4 M40i. The Supra’s open-topped cousin offered something almost unique: a straight-six roadster with a manual gearbox. The Z4 left production in spring 2026, after a Final Edition built between February and April, and BMW has approved no replacement.

The manual gearbox will not win a single argument on the stopwatch. It never needed to. Its case is the left foot, the right hand and a decision made a fraction of a second before the corner, the kind of attention that a car can still ask for, as long as someone is willing to give it.

GABRIEL SILVEIRADO, FOR WAYFARER.