BMW's M Cars Could Lose Their Manual Gearboxes

There is bad news coming from Bavaria if you enjoy using the leftmost pedal and the stick shifter in your M car: the head of BMW’s M division, Frank van Meel, says he doesn’t think there is much of a future for manual gearboxes due to declining sales of M cars equipped with standard transmissions.

Van Meel was quoted as saying: “From a technical standpoint, the future doesn’t look bright for manual gearboxes. The DCT and auto ’boxes are faster and they have better fuel consumption.

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“It’s difficult to say we’ll stick to the manual, but we still have a big fan community for manuals and we are not going to take away something the customer wants to have.”

This is sure to disappoint all the manual fanatics out there (including myself). Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this.

Source: Montreal Racing