A Sad Reality
The death of the manual transmission is a topic hotly debated among sports car and supercar enthusiasts. It’s true that a manual transmission enhances the driving experience in many ways. It’s also true that cars are often faster without them. Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini’s research and design chief, recently sat down with Road and Track to discuss why you’ll never see a manual transmission in a Lambo ever again. He said the following:
All the systems that are integrated in the car need to have a dialog with one another. The clutch is one of the fuses of the system, whether you’re engaging or disengaging the torque. This creates a hole in the communication between what the engine is able to provide and how the car reacts to the power of the engine. For this reason, unfortunately, I must say I am sure that in a premium supersports car like the Huracán, we will only do a semiautomatic.
Maurizio went on to note that he understands and enjoys manual transmission cars. He said that the issue is really about chassis control. It’s easier to control the chassis of the car with the modern day semi-automatic transmissions found in vehicles like the Huracán.
He also discussed some puzzlement over the idea that manual transmissions are held up as the purest driving experience. He said almost all new manual transmissions have servos at the clutch. This helps you keep from burning up the clutch. That means there’s a filter between the driver and the clutch. It’s not as pure as many people actually think.
High-powered Lamborghinis of the future and likely of most other cars will come with an automatic or semi-automatic transmission. With horsepower, torque, and the resulting speeds being so high, an automatic transmission simply makes more sense.
