Ferrari's Latest Surprise: A Virtual Stick Shift for the Purist

Ferrari has just thrown a curveball to driving enthusiasts who mourned the death of the manual gearbox. The Italian marque’s newest model, the 12Cilindri, now offers something called the Manuale—a system that simulates the feel of rowing your own gears without actually using a clutch pedal or a traditional H-pattern linkage.

Think of it as a high-tech compromise between old-school engagement and modern performance.

Under the hood, the 12Cilindri still packs Ferrari’s naturally aspirated V12, a masterpiece that revs to the moon. But instead of offering a real third pedal, the Manuale mode uses the car’s existing dual-clutch automatic transmission to mimic the behavior of a manual. Drivers can toggle between fully automatic shifting or take control via steering wheel paddles that now deliver sharper, more deliberate gear changes, complete with a simulated mechanical snick.

It’s not a true manual, but Ferrari claims it’s the closest thing to one in a modern supercar.

The move is a nod to the purists who have long begged Ferrari to bring back a stick shift—a request the company last fulfilled with the 2012 California. But unlike that car, the 12Cilindri Manuale doesn’t sacrifice any of its blistering speed. The simulated gearbox can still swap cogs in milliseconds when left in auto mode, making it a dual-purpose machine: a civilized cruiser for the daily drive, or a row-your-own rocket for Sunday canyon runs.

Whether this virtual manual satisfies the die-hards remains to be seen, but Ferrari isn’t pretending it’s the real thing. Instead, they’ve built a clever bridge between nostalgia and technology—one that lets you feel like you’re driving a manual without actually losing any of the performance that makes a modern Ferrari so ferocious.

For now, the 12Cilindri Manuale is the closest thing to a third pedal that Maranello is willing to offer.