If you want a manual sports car, your options are vanishing fast. Credit to BMW for fighting the good fight, allowing the privilege of rowing your own in the M2, M3, and M4. (Rest in peace, Z4.) Buyers seem to be taking advantage of the offer, too: About 50% of all M2s sold in the U.S. nowadays have a stick, per the company. According to BMW M CEO Frank van Meel, though, that still may not be enough to secure the transmission’s future in the automaker’s lineup after the next few years.
Van Meel recently caught up with journalists in Australia, where he shed some light on M’s upcoming plans. They’ll include 30 new full-fat M and skimmed M Performance models over the next 30 months, including the long-awaited Neue Klasse M3. Exciting times, indeed. But when the topic of conversation turned to manuals, he took a less certain tone.
If you’ve heard the M boss speak on the matter before, he didn’t offer anything strictly new. Van Meel reiterated, according to CarSales, how the manual transmission “doesn’t really make sense because it limits you in torque and also in fuel consumption,” while conceding that, “from an emotional standpoint and customer standpoint, a lot of people still love manuals, so that’s why we kept them, and we intend to keep them as long as possible.”
It’s the “as long as possible” part that’s worrying, because van Meel only sees them lasting “the next couple of years.” The CEO touched upon how developing completely new manual gearboxes will be “difficult” because this is a niche interest, after all, with a poor business case for suppliers like ZF and Tremec. “In the future, probably it’s going to be more difficult to keep the manuals alive, especially in the next decade,” he surmised.
It’s challenging to square those harsh realities with the latest data that, again, suggests every other M2 buyer pulls away from the dealer easing off a clutch pedal. The industry, not merely BMW, must believe that those customers will return even when automatic is their only option. Perhaps some enthusiasts will hold out, but plenty won’t. Then, when those sticks in the mud (no pun nor criticism intended, I promise; manual owner here) eventually age out of the market, so too will the skill. It’s just the way of the world. Or, at least it will be, unless the youth has something to say about it. Let’s hope for our sake that they do.
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