Another supercar brand is set to bring back the manual
Following Ferrari’s 12Cilindri Manuale launch, rumours of McLaren getting back in the three-pedal game are circulating.
Ferrari surprised many when it revealed the 12Cilindri last month, producing its first road car with a shifter and three pedals in close to 15 years, bucking the trend of high-end brands going auto-only.
While Lamborghini has said it likely won’t follow suit, British rival brand McLaren is reportedly set to take up the challenge by introducing its first manual model in almost three decades.
According to The Supercar Blog – which accurately reported on the 12Cilindri Manuale prior to its debut – McLaren is developing a new manual model, though details are minimal at the moment.
Jordan Mulach
Reportedly called the P50 internally, the publication claims it’ll be a “limited-edition hypercar with a stick shift”, raising further questions about the powertrain.
Currently McLaren’s engine lineup consists of twin-turbo V6s and V8s, while its last manual car – the F1 of the mid-1990s – paired its manual transmission with a V12 engine.
The F1’s designer, Gordon Murray, has recently started his own brand which recreates the supercar’s formula, with the GMA T.33 and T.50 featuring V12 engines and manual transmissions.
While that and many other vehicles have featured ‘traditional’ manual transmissions where the gear selector and clutch pedal are connected directly to the transmission, McLaren could go down the path of Ferrari, which introduced a new system for the 12Cilindri Manuale.
Jordan Mulach
Called ‘Manuale By-Wire’, Ferrari’s system sees a six-speed gated shifter which allows the driver to manually choose the first six of the forward-moving gears in the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.
The gears can be selected by pressing the clutch pedal which has no physical connection to the clutch packs. Instead, pressing the pedal activates an angle position sensor which tells the system how much pressure to apply, with the car’s electronic brain simulating the effect of a true clutch system.
The Supercar Blog claims the McLaren P50 will make its debut at The Quail as a part of next month’s Monterey Car Week, with production expected to not exceed 100 examples.
Jordan Mulach
