Aston Martin Wants To Keep Manual Transmissions Alive After Everyone Else Has Gone Auto

When the Porsche 911 GT3 RS was launched without the option of a manual gearbox, we all thought it was the beginning of the end of for the stick-shift. But every cloud has a silver lining, as Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer told Car and Driver that the manual ‘box is far from dead.

“I’ve already gone on record saying I want to be the last manufacturer in the world to offer a manual sports car,” he said.

Palmer dismissed ideas of moving to a dual-clutch gearbox, which features in the GT3 RS, because “they can’t do anything that a well-tuned automatic can’t”.

Car and Driver also says that Palmer sees Aston expanding to a seven car range, with one engine option per car. He did, however, acknowledge that there may be demand for some engines to cross over.

We’ve already seen the new (and rather beautiful) Aston Martin DB11 at the Geneva motor show, but we’re expecting both the DBX crossover and a replacement for the V8 Vantage to join the range in the near future.

Here’s what happened when we lived with a Vanquish for the day: