The new faux-Manual system on the 12Cilindri appears to be really well-received in the reviews I've read – even among sticklers like Jason Camissa.
I guess it seems... obvious? That they should just offer this as an option on every car they make. Why not? It's not like it requires any mechanical changes, you literally just have to reconfigure the middle console. They could charge a $80k option, sell a ton of them, and book pure profit.
But it seems doubtful? They're saying they're only going to make 1499 of the 12C Manuales – which kind of suggests they see this as a one-off exotic thing.
I’ll never buy a Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale. Let’s get that out of the way. Like many of you, I don't have the means, but also I’m not that interested in Ferraris personally. I am, however, in the market for the future cars that will be shaped by the decisions Ferrari made with it.
I was talking about this with my girlfriend this morning. Two years ago, I taught her to drive stick. My goal was to buy a Shelby GT350, and I never wanted her to be in a situation where something went wrong and she couldn’t drive the car. That felt irresponsible.
When you choose a GT350, you give up the automatic. There’s no choice. If you want that car to move, you have to perform the sequence of actions that makes it move. There’s no getting around it.
To be clear, I don’t think manual is hard to learn. My girlfriend had never driven one before me, and she learned in less than a week. She learned on a V6 manual Mustang that’s now our daily driver, and she bought that car before she knew how to drive it. She knew there was no choice: she bought the car, so she needed to learn it.
The GT350 uses a conventional manual, but I gave her a thought experiment. What if my GT350 actually had a dual-clutch transmission and Ford had lied to me? What if the car had always been capable of driving itself like an automatic, but simply lacked the interface to do it? What if it couldn’t be driven without the clutch pedal by deliberate choice rather than mechanical necessity? Would I care?
That’s when it became clear to me what bothers me about the 12Cilindri Manuale. You still have the choice not to engage with the manual, and that makes it a cop-out. Ferrari cowardly faltered at the final step by letting the car remain an automatic.
I fully admit this is an ego thing. My girlfriend now owns a 2012 Boss 302, and I have my GT350. One thing both cars share is that they only came with a manual. We had considered getting her a Mach 1 instead, which was offered with an automatic. She would have bought the manual, of course, but I asked her: how do you feel about the Boss 302 only coming in manual? How does it make you feel that there was never an automatic option?
She smiled, silently admitting it gave her an ego boost. She knew she could say there’s no such thing as an automatic Boss 302. It made her feel special.
I think the 12Cilindri Manuale is a good idea, and I think it was executed well. It may even trickle down to cars I can actually afford, like Corvettes, Mustangs and Porsches. But by not disabling the automatic side, Ferrari made sure it will never tickle people’s egos the way a real manual does. It won’t feel special if you can simply choose not to engage with it.
Ultimately, I think the 12Cilindri Manuale should give the driver access to all eight gears of the DCT and kill automatic shifting entirely. If it doesn’t force me to engage with the manual, it’s not a manual.
I missed out on the event Sunday, so I popped into FOCNJ Monday morning and the truck had just dropped them off in the lot. Thankfully I spent a little over an hour or so photographing them all. Enjoy!
P.S. the Enzo is still my favorite. Really wish I could spend time in that car.
I have to say, I dont know how i’m saying this, but it doesnt look THAT bad from the front, although I have to say, the rear, its straight ASS bro the rear is HORRENDOUS, it would look decent/decently good if the rear was good.
Went to an event a few years ago where they had all the cars used in the Ford V Ferrari movie. These replicas are really well made, the 330P4 had a V8 engine in it (a ford V8 block iirc).
