Bad news: You can't get a manual transmission in the BMW 4 Series convertible. That's almost as heartbreaking as when Toyota dropped the Camry's clutch pedal.

The truth, unfortunately, is that almost nobody bought either the droptop Four's predecessor (the 3 Series convertible) or Toyota's mid-size sedan with a stick, so their makers stopped making them. That's business. But it's also one more voice to the growing car-business argument that the manual transmission is going away for good.

The sky's been falling for 50 years now, it seems. In September 1965, Playboy published an article by automotive-journalism legend Ken Purdy. It opened with a two-page shot of a Corvette shifter covered in cobwebs and the headline "Bye-Bye Stick Shift."

The crux of the piece was simple: Automatic transmissions had been proven to make race cars go faster, rendering the manual obsolete. It was destined to become nothing more than "a purist's plaything."

READ THIS: Three-Pedal Club: These cars only come with manuals

Half a century later, Purdy's theory has been proven somewhat correct—most mainstream cars, like the Camry, don't offer a stick at all, and those that do sell in minuscule numbers. But perhaps "purist" was too strong a word. What about the cars that regular enthusiasts buy?

Dom Romney

The Volkswagen GTI is perhaps the best example. Originally offered with only a manual transmission, the archetypal hot hatch gained three additional letters—DSG—in 2006, for its fifth generation. That optional dual-clutch auto, with its lack of a third pedal, wasn't a power-sapping torque-converter 'box but what forum fanboys called a performance enhancer. And because it made the GTI even quicker on the dash to 60 mph—and easier to drive fast on a track—people said it would be the final nail in the manual's coffin.

There was no coffin. GTI sales doubled, and half of the car's buyers still chose the clutch pedal. That means the "take rate," an industry term for the portion of customers who select a particular option or configuration, dropped from 100 percent to 50. But the number of stick-shift GTIs sold held steady.

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In the nine model years since the DSG debuted, the GTI's manual-transmission take rate hasn't dropped. In 2012 (the last full year for which VW has sales information), some 7830 manual GTIs were sold here. That's 500 cars more than what the three-pedal GTI has averaged here each year since 1983. So how, exactly, is the manual transmission doomed?

It's not—at least not at VW, which has expressed a commitment to keeping the option available. But the rest of the industry feels differently. BMW, for example, has Chicken Little analyzing its sales numbers. And the company's reps are convinced the sky is at risk.

"Chris Doane Automotive"

To wit: Production of the V8 (E90) M3 just ended, and the results are in—45 of every 100 North American M3 buyers opted for a clutch pedal. That includes the convertible, a 4000-lb, V8-powered luxoboat that seems rather unpure. A very good sign.

BMW's 3 Series has grown so large that we're beginning to question its status as an enthusiast car, much less a purist's machine; the current Three has a bigger interior than the brand's first 7 Series. BMW built stick-shift Sevens in the 1980s, but the company doesn't have numbers on how few were sold. Production was so low, it probably didn't pay to count them.

READ THIS: Meeting the 2015 BMW M3 and M4

Despite the dimensional bloat, the number of manual-gearbox 3 Series sold annually in North America hasn't decreased significantly in the last 25 years. Meanwhile, BMW's best automatic has evolved from a miserable four-speed to a computer-controlled eight-speed that shifts faster than any human, accelerates quicker, and offers better fuel economy.

But as a result of the Germans' single-minded quest to sell more cars, the brand is attracting incremental buyers who aren't enthusiasts. In other words, the take rate is falling.

Blame the image-conscious consumers who spend $279 a month to lease a heavily subsidized status symbol. And given that some of those amazing lease rates apply only to automatic-transmission models, and that many dealers won't even stock manual BMWs, it's a miracle that anyone buys a stick Three in the first place. The fact that the 3 Series still appeals to the same number of manual-transmission buyers as it did 25 years ago is a win for the stick. BMW just needs to wake up to it.

As for enthusiast cars, they also win. The Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S twins—compact, rear-drive, four-cylinder coupes—are overwhelmingly bought with manuals: 70 percent for the Subie and about 60 for the Scion. The manual BRZ and FR-S are more fun than the automatic versions. Are they faster? Do you really care?

Purdy was wrong back then, and most corporate statisticians are wrong today—enthusiasts crave fun first and speed second, and the two aren't always linked. Yes, the manual has disappeared from race cars. And it's disappearing from boring cars. But the clutch pedal is alive and well. You just have to know where to look.

READ THIS: 2014 Scion FR-S Coupé Engineering Prototype

Jason Cammisa is a senior editor at R&T. He has a take rate of 50 percent.

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