For the 1980 model year, 35 percent of cars produced for sale in the United States had manual transmissions, according to the Environmental Protection

As Stick Shifts Fade Into Obscurity, Collectors See Opportunity

submited by

Style Pass

2021-06-26 02:00:09

For the 1980 model year, 35 percent of cars produced for sale in the United States had manual transmissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Today, the share is about 1 percent. And just 18 percent of American drivers can drive a stick, according to U.S. News and World Report.

This relative scarcity has collectors and enthusiasts salivating. They are pushing up the values of late-model sports cars with a clutch pedal and, in the process, creating a new class of collectible cars.

At the rate the stick shift is disappearing, it might join the automotive fossil record even before the internal combustion engine. In fact, in 2019, sales of electric vehicles surpassed the sale of manual transmission cars. Because of the torque delivery of their motors, E.V.s have no need for heavy, complicated six- or seven-speed gearboxes, whether automatic or manual.

The tipping point, however, was actually the introduction of quick-shifting, hyper-efficient dual-clutch automatic transmissions a little over a decade ago, causing trendsetting sports car manufacturers to all but give up on the clutch pedal. Before that, a manual transmission was de rigueur in any serious performance car.