A constant refrain that you hear from rabid car fans is how the manual transmission is dying and we need to "save the manuals." We're frequently a party that is praising automakers when they make cars with a manual and deride them when one goes away.

So when cars like the Porsche Cayman GT4, Boxster Spyder, Corvette Z06, Nissan 370Z, Focus RS, BMW M3/M4 and more offer manual gearboxes as either the only option or the obviously better option, we rejoice. It's heralded as a win for enthusiasts that these gearboxes are still available and that the automakers are recognizing the needs of the enthusiasts.

But there's a small problem: These gearboxes aren't as manual as they might appear.

For example, along with the official horsepower numbers of the Ford Focus RS, details were released about the gearbox and drivetrain:

And yet even with all that torque, the manual-only hot hatch will be especially forgiving in the event a driver stalls the engine, as Focus RS will debut with a trick feature called stall recovery. In other words, there will be no need for drivers to manually restart the engine or move the gear selector to neutral as the innovative technology simply pushes the clutch back in.



That means that the Focus RS will help ham fisted (or ham footed, in this case) drivers that can't launch off the line from stalling the engine by using auto start/stop technology. From my experience, Porsche and Mini's (and possibly more) manuals use the auto start/stop to keep you from stalling. Stalling is a thing that happens with manual cars, especially with less experienced drivers, but nobody is really safe from the perils of sitting at a light and bucking to a stop. It's just part of the manual experience.

It builds character to stall an engine. But if start/stop technology in these new manual cars mitigates the impact of a stall (no key turning, no honking, no obscenity laced tirades from the people you're holding up), where's the incentive to learn how to do it right?

Hill starts are also a dying art since so many cars now have a feature that holds them still on an incline (a feature Subaru had ages ago) until the car starts to move forward. It's another skill that isn't being learned anymore.

The same can be said for the auto rev match feature that's available on many new manuals. Instead of having to match the revs to make a smooth transition to a lower gear on your own, the car does it for you. If the car will match the revs for you, where's the incentive to learn?

Granted, these systems can all be turned off (Porsche doesn't even turn on rev matching unless you're in Sport Plus, but BMW has it on unless you put the car in Sport Plus), but if the car will do some of the more complicated work for you and you're happy with it, why would you turn the systems off?

These systems change new manual gearboxes into some sort of Franken-transmission that's an automatic with a clutch pedal.

Lamborghini says that the clutch pedal is an interference in the dynamics of the car, and it must be part of the full system that is under control of the car, not under human control. That way they can all be in harmony. The driver is not part of that harmony.

Part of the joy of the manual is doing everything yourself, and when you screw up, you screwed it up. Now, automakers are including a safety net that makes your responsibility to solely use the clutch sometimes (but you apparently don't even need to be adept at it) and move a lever with your hand when the time is appropriate.

Of course, there'll always be people who turn off the systems every time they get in the car (or refuse to engage them) because they want to do everything themselves. But what happens when they experience a rev match or a stall save for the first time? Will they decide that since the computer can do it better than them that they don't need to do it anymore? It's possible. And will automakers decide, in the name of safety or some other BS, that auto rev match and stall prevention needs to always be in place and can't be defeated? We might be heading that way.

No matter what, the manuals that are being released now aren't as manual as they once were, and that's a shame.

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