Has the manual gearbox returned at the 2024 Festival of Speed?

Take for instance, Aston Martin, which was present with a six-car force in the Supercar paddock, three of which, were manuals. It all started with the Victor, three years ago now, which married a Vulcan chassis and a One-77 engine with an exposed-linkage manual transmission and bluff old-school styling. 

Then, upon its reveal, Aston Martin’s phone started ringing off the hook, with people wanting to buy one, all adamant that the old-school analogue experience the Victor so proudly represents, is what they want. A run of Victors wasn’t on the cards, but Aston came up with the next best thing: the Victor-esque, manual, V12-engined Valour, based on the V12 Vantage, of which 110 would be made. 

Then, Fernando Alonso came along and said he wanted his Valour to be a bit more hardcore and extreme. So different, in fact, that it warranted its own run of cars. And so, the Valiant was born, which he debuted at the Festival of Speed with more power, more aero, more track focus, but still with a manual transmission.

Of course, the rest of the hypercar segment has been turning on its axis too. With the novelty of hyper hybridity wearing off and all-electric 2,000PS (1,470kW) hypercars proving to be much of a muchness, this generation seems to be all about revs and interaction, with the charge being lead by Gordon Murray Automotive. 

Yes, the T.50 debuted the six-speed manual transmission, with which the driver controls the 12,100rpm Cosworth V12. But the real tell of what demand for this stuff is like, is with its junior sibling, the T.33, represented by Mule 3 at the 2024 Festival of Speed. The plan with this more conventional supercar, was to offer both a paddle-shift and a manual, but uptake for the paddle-shift car ended up being so low (in the single figures) that it wasn’t worth GMA actually seeing it through to production.

Then we look to the now well-established boutique marques, Pagani and Koenigsegg. Both arrived in the 1990s with high-performance, high-tech but still manual supercars. Then, in the 2010s, they moved to paddle-shift boxes and we thought that would be that. We thought Pagani’s third-generation hypercar might even be electric. We were wrong. The Utopia arrived still with a turbocharged V12 but also, the returning option of a manual transmission. We have it on reasonable authority that a good chunk of the 100 buyers have opted for a stick and three pedals.

Before that was revealed, in 2022 Koenigsegg revealed the CC850, a retro-styled tribute to its original CC8S, with, you guessed it, a manual transmission… sort of. Typical of Koenigsegg, it created a manual shift linkage, open gate, knob and clutch pedal that interfaces electronically with its existing automatic Light Speed Transmission. The result: a fully manual experience – stalling and all – with the option of an auto mode and even paddles if you spec them. The best of all worlds. 

In fact, it proved so impressive, that the boss of the FIA himself, Mohamed Ben Sulayem, ordered a very expensive, intensive conversion for his Koenigsegg Agera RS, involving the new manual system, LST and Jesko engine being swapped into the old car. 

As serendipity would have it, Pagani unveiled a similar project this week and debuted it at the Festival of Speed, the Pagani Huayra Epitome. This one-off also, for the first time, married its second-generation hypercar with a manual transmission, in this case borrowed from the Utopia.

But it’s not serendipity, is it. It’s tastes evolving. Over the last 20 years cars have become so fast that acceleration and speed aren’t precious, hard-fought commodities anymore. They’re easy to come by. What isn’t so easy to cultivate is interaction and sensation. Our pursuit of high-performance has distanced the driver somewhat from the experience of actually operating a machine. It seems at the highest level, that’s what buyers are starting to want again.

And none else have known this best these past few years than Porsche. The German marque caught the wrath of enthusiasts when it tried to offer one of the finest-driving sportscars in the world in terms of sensation, the 911 GT3, without a manual. It took them three years to develop a special six-speed, trial demand for it in a limited-run special – the 911 R – and then reintroduce it wholesale to the facelifted GT3. 

We’re now two-generations on from that and the 911 S/T is debuting at the Festival of Speed as the most involving, analogue 911 for over a decade. It features a cabin that doesn’t isolate you from the engine’s mechanical chunter and a flywheel so light its rev needle struggles to keep up when you blip the throttle.

If you’re counting, that’s a full nine high-end cars in the supercar paddock and on the stands, that feature manual transmissions. And that’s before you get into all the resto and retromods from Singer, Kimera, and so on. No, these aren’t the sorts of cars the average Joe could pop down their dealer and order, but it’s hard when looking at all this, not to see momentum building and optimistically wonder if priorities could shift at a wider scale too.

Because these cars are the result of customer pushback, against the recent trend of ultra-high-performance electric and hybrid cars, with ballooning curb weights and increasingly irrelevant-feeling accelerative performance. 

They’re a sign that calls for cars to involve the driver more are being heard. This trend might be the preserve of six and seven-figure exotica at the moment but with momentum, we suspect more are on the way, that will be more widely available at a more accessible price. Here’s hoping.

Photography by Toby Whales, Pete Summers, Nick Wiliknson, Jochen Van Cauwenberge.