Nostalgia usually means looking back. Not this time. Ferrari just dropped the 12Cilindri Manche and it has three pedals. A gated shifter too. Looks like the old days? Sure. Under the skin. It’s totally new.
Since 2012. No road-going Ferrari has let you work the gears manually. The 599 GTB was the last one out the door. Now we have a boxy little hunk of metal and aluminum. But don’t expect a vintage gearbox buried in there. Ferrari had no interest in that. They wanted the feeling. The noise. The struggle. Without the mechanical mess.
“Maranello had no interest in dustishing off an old gearbox.”
It’s an electric trick. That’s what it is. The shifter doesn’t touch the transmission. The clutch pedal? Also disconnected. Both send electronic signals. Sensors. Code. That’s it.
Ferrari calls it Manuale By-Wire.
You move the stick. The computer gets it. You stomp the clutch. The software says okay. It’s basically how Koenigsegg does it. Light. Fast. Weirdly analog. The whole setup weighs only 5 kg. Eleven pounds. Steel for the hard parts. Aluminum for the rest.
The Ghost in the Gate
Inside it looks pure. Classic aluminum knob. Six-speed gate polished to a shine. The dashboard moves too. Everything tilted to keep your eyes on the road. Not the phone. The shifting.
But the gate is a lie. A beautiful, expensive lie. There’s no cable. No linkage. Just data.
Ferrari spent years tuning this. They didn’t want it to feel fake. They added sensors. Weighty resistance. So when you shift. You feel something. Real loads. Real feedback. If you drop the clutch too fast. You’ll stall. Ferrari confirmed this. You can kill the car. Deliberately or by mistake. Good. Should feel wrong if done wrong.
One problem. The gate only shows six gears. The DCT under there has eight. What happens above sixth?
The computer takes over. Silently. Seventh. Eighth. Launch control. All automatic. You lose the paddle shifters entirely. Manual mode cuts off at 60 mph. Above that. The machine drives you. Below that. You’re on your own. Dip the clutch. Grab the lever. Feel the world blur.
Is this cheating?
Maybe.
Or maybe it’s smarter.
Power. None. Taken.
Other brands punish manual buyers. BMW took power away from its manual M3. Longevity issues. Fragility. Ferrari didn’t care. The 6.5L V12 is still naturally aspirated. Still screaming at 9,500 RPM. Still making 819 hp. Torque hasn’t blinked either.
It launches in 2.9 seconds. To sixty-two mph. Two. Nine.
Top speed? Over 211 mph.
It’s homologated as an automatic. So it is an automatic. Just wearing a disguise. This saves the transmission. Saves the motor. Keeps the power peak where it belongs. High up.
No compromise there.
Cost of Admission
You won’t see many. 1,499 units. That’s all. Each one bespoke. Every detail custom via Ferrari’s Tailor Made program. Nothing standard.
Price starts at €590,447 in Europe. About $675,000 USD. That is a steep hill to climb. More than a hundred thousand dollars above the standard car. And that is before options. Before the leather. The paint. The stripes harkening back to the Daytona era.
It is sold out already. Wait lists closed before launch. Delivery in 2027. Early dates.
Will people love it? Half will hate the idea of an automatic masquerading as a manual. The other half will worship the convenience mixed with theater. We like it. Let’s see where they put them.
There are no guarantees here. Only the promise of noise.
