New BMW M boss Frank van Meel says buyers may still have a choice between two transmissions, just between two types of automatics.
Talking to Autocar, van Meel said: “From a technical standpoint, the future doesn’t look bright for manual gearboxes.”
So goes another nail into the coffin.
Van Meel makes the same argument engineers have been making for a decade or more.
“The DCT and auto ’boxes are faster and they have better fuel consumption,” he said.
Van Meel doesn’t directly kill the manual, however. He told Autocar BMW would still offer manual versions if buyers demanded it. The last generation M3’s manual take rate was around 45 percent. We’ve reached out to BMW to see how many new M car buyers opt to row their own.
As an interesting side note, the online configurator for BMW automatically selects the dual-clutch automatic transmission, a $2,900 option, for M cars with an available manual. Only the X6 M and X5 M do not have an available manual transmission in the U.S.
The post Future BMW M Cars May Not Have Manuals appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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