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"   Photo by Richard M. Baron   Road &amp;amp;amp; Track Managing Editor Andy Bornhop recently returned from Italy, where he drove the Ferrari 458 Italia. Not surprisingly, Bornhop said this new mid-engine Prancing Horse is fantastic, but he also had another piece of information from the folks in Maranello: The 458 Italia will not be available with Ferrari&amp;#039;s classic gated manual shifter. The only gearbox for this 570-bhp machine will be the new 7-speed twin-clutch paddle-shift. Ferrari&amp;#039;s reasoning (and I paraphrase from Bornhop): &amp;quot;This system is faster and provides quicker lap times.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s great, but what about the thrill of driving? You know, accomplishing those perfect rev-matched heel-and-toe downshifts because you have the skill, not because a computer did it for you. Let&amp;#039;s do a little blame-storming here, to try to understand just how we&amp;#039;ve gotten to the point where only about 1 percent of the previous F430s were sold with a manual gearbox: Is it the fault of Ferrari owners, who have opted so heavily for the paddle-shift system when given the choice? Or is it the fault of Ferrari, for shoving the F1 paddle-shift system down everyone&amp;#039;s throats for the last 10-plus years? An example: The last test car Ferrari gave to R&amp;amp;amp;T that was fitted with a gated manual was a 550 Barchetta Pininfarina...for a story in our January 2002 issue! But it&amp;#039;s not just Ferrari that&amp;#039;s ditching the manual; other paddle-shift-only notables include Nissan&amp;#039;s GT-R and the 2011 McLaren MP4-12C. Are we headed down a road to a place where manual transmissions are extinct? I can see it now; you mention heel-and-toeing to a young person in a few years, and they&amp;#039;ll think you&amp;#039;re talking about a disease: &amp;quot;Heel-and-toe? You must mean hoof-and-mouth, Grandpa.&amp;quot; Okay, so you can crack off slightly quicker lap times with a paddle-shift system. But who cares about a few tenths when you&amp;#039;re not racing (and most Ferrari road cars will never be raced, or even taken to a track day)? For me, the fun comes from the satisfaction of driving well, and a big part of that is in shifting the car myself. So does anyone else out there care that eventually you won&amp;#039;t be able to order any Ferrari with a manual transmission? And possibly more important: How come Ferrari owners don&amp;#039;t seem to care about this?   2010 Ferrari 458 Italia paddle shifters (Photo by Stephane Foulon)    2010 Ferrari 458 Italia (Photo by Stephane Foulon)  No related posts. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a73/the-dehumanization-of-shifting-6054/>