Best manual cars - the greatest ever gear changes
As manual gearboxes gradually go the way of the dodo, we pick our favourites
Some of us may be reluctant to admit it, but manual cars are on the decline. The rise of electrification has contributed towards automatics becoming the default option for countless motorists, so finding the very best manual cars means delving into both the new and used car worlds.
Our expert road testers have rounded up their picks of the cars that provide the perfect three-pedal experience. Ranging from stripped-back sports cars to sensible superminis, these top manual cars will have you rowing through cogs with a smile on your face.
Mazda MX-5
- Engine: 1.5-litre/2.0-litre 4cyl petrol
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 130bhp/152Nm or 181bhp/205Nm
- 0-62mph: 8.3/6.5 seconds
- Top speed: 127mph/136mph
As drivers’ cars continue to rise in price and complexity, the Mazda MX-5 continues to stand proudly as an analogue sports car for the masses. To be fair, you can pick any generation of MX-5 if you want a great manual gearbox, but I feel that the current ND generation strikes a superb balance between old- fashioned engagement and modern-day usability.
The same formula has been applied to this lightweight car for decades: plonk a revvy, naturally aspirated engine at the front, a manual gearbox and folding roof in the middle, and send drive to the rear. The MX-5 certainly isn’t a technological phenomenon, nor is it an outright powerhouse, but it is a car that offers pure driving fun, and the manual shift is a fundamental part of that.
Audi R8 V8
By Paul Barker
- Engine: 4.2-litre V8 petrol
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 414bhp/430Nm
- 0-62mph: 4.6 seconds
- Top speed: 187mph
As a way of gaining instant credibility for your new supercar, making it look as jaw-dropping as the Audi R8 did when it landed in 2006 was important, but giving it an iconic stainless steel gate for the manual gear lever was a masterstroke.
It simply turns every shift into an event, the click-clack as you knock the tactile gearlever backwards and forwards being an experience only felt in the most Italian of supercars. And it works, too – it might look like you need to be precise when going diagonally in particular, but it’s slick.
It’s also connected to a corker of an engine. The 4.2-litre V8 is chilled-out enough to make low-speed urban jaunts uneventful (if you ignore the heavy clutch), but wind it up and it makes a sonorous howl.
Honda Civic Type R
By Tom Jervis
- Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo petrol
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 324bhp/420Nm
- 0-62mph: 5.4 seconds
- Top speed: 171mph
The final FL5 Honda Civic Type R has what I deem to be one of the most satisfying gearshifts of all time. The cold, metal lever sits at the perfect height and shifts with a delightfully mechanical quality. A short throw between each ratio is then accompanied by a satisfying thunk, a near-perfectly weighted clutch and the riotous howl of the Type R’s 2.0-litre four- cylinder engine, which loves to be revved hard.
Latest Honda Civic Type R deals
Caterham Seven 310S
- Engine: 1.6-litre 4cyl petrol
- Gearbox: Five-speed manual
- Power/torque: 152bhp/168Nm
- 0-62mph: 4.9 seconds
- Top speed: 126mph
For me, the very best driver’s cars aren’t necessarily the fastest. Cars that require a bit of work are, ultimately, the ones that end up offering more reward. And in my opinion, there’s nothing more rewarding than a Caterham Seven.
Key to the Seven’s appeal is the short-throw, five-speed manual gearbox, such as the one in the 310S test car we ran in 2016. Sitting low in the cabin, you don’t want a long lever that gives the sense you’re rowing through the gears; the stubby shifter, sunken in the tall transmission tunnel and crowned by a tactile metal sphere, has to be one of the best combinations known to mankind.
Porsche 911 Carrera T
By Ellis Hyde
- Engine: 3.0-litre twin-turbo flat-six petrol
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 388bhp/450Nm
- 0-62mph: 4.5 seconds
- Top speed: 183mph
The new Porsche 911 Carrera T is one of the few high-end sports cars on sale today featuring a manual transmission, which in itself is something worth honouring. But more than that, this is a celebration of the do-it-yourself way of changing gears that strips things back to deliver a purer and more engaging driving experience.
There’s no complicated hybrid system onboard, just a 388bhp 3.0-litre flat-six engine paired with a six-speed manual gearbox, sending all its power to the rear wheels. As you would expect in a Porsche, the transmission is lovely to interact with, even if you don’t get to do that as much as some would like due to the long gearing.
Lotus Elise S3
- Engine: 1.8-litre 4cyl petrol supercharged
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 245bhp/250Nm
- 0-62mph: 3.9 seconds
- Top speed: 154mph
The Lotus Elise had plenty of attributes that made it an icon of the sports car scene throughout its life. Free-revving, responsive engines were a mainstay, as was the ultra-lightweight fibreglass body that, alongside telepathic steering feel, made the Elise a byword for great handling.
The early S1 cars came with a Rover-sourced gearbox to match the K-Series engine and while the gearshift of these cars is delightful, I’ve gone for a later Series 3 – notably in 250 Cup form – which featured an exposed gear linkage to give every shift a bit of theatre.
While the Elise 250 Cup is rewarding in so many areas, the Toyota-sourced gearbox and its shift are among the most enjoyable elements.
BMW E46 330D
- Engine: 3.0-litre straight-six turbodiesel
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 181bhp/390Nm
- 0-62mph: 7.2 seconds
- Top speed: 150mph
The springy tactility of BMW’s six-speed manual gearbox blew my mind in the late nineties. I first drove it in the E46 330d back in 1999. Peak power was 181bhp, but its 390Nm overwhelmed the petrol cars of its day. The leather-covered gearknob nuzzled into your palm, and slid effortlessly between the six, closely spaced gears. And if you got the change from second to third right, you’d land bang in this 2,000rpm band of torque.
Sadly, the diesel-manual gearbox car is heading for the history books. Our search of Carwow’s used-car buying pages uncovered 10 diesel-manual BMW 3 Series for sale, all from the generation phased out in 2019.
Toyota GT86
By Max Adams
- Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl petrol
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 197bhp/205Nm
- 0-62mph: 7.6 seconds
- Top speed: 140mph
For a driver’s car such as the Toyota GT86, it’s the version with the manual gearbox you want to go for. That’s because its 2.0-litre ‘boxer’ engine was never particularly powerful, and the six-speed auto robbed you in terms of acceleration and top speed, taking 0.5 seconds longer to go from 0-62mph and lopping 10mph off the top speed when compared with the six- speed, Aisin TL70 manual.
Then there are the qualities you can’t define by numbers, such as the extra layer of control that a manual transmission can give you on a challenging country road. And the shift itself, which, if memory serves, was always better once the car was warmed up, is slick and precise.
I always preferred the Blue Edition GT86 with the Performance Pack, which added sharper Brembo brakes and a little more brake pedal feel, which I felt made heel-and-toe downshifts even easier.
Ford Fiesta Mk6
By Steve Walker
- Engine: 1.4-litre 4cyl petrol
- Gearbox: Five-speed manual
- Power/torque: 78bhp/124Nm
- 0-62mph: 12.8 seconds
- Top speed: 104mph
Some cars sell in huge numbers without being very good and some great cars hardly sell at all; the Ford Fiesta is a great car that sold in vast quantities. We had eight generations of Ford’s supermini before it was axed in 2023, some of them absolute corkers. If you want the perfect small-car driving experience, the facelifted model that launched in 2012 is probably the best of the lot and the
sweet-shifting five-speed manual was at the heart of its appeal.
Great manuals come into their own in cars where you really need to use them and the same Ford IB5 unit had already memorably appeared in the Ford Puma, Mk1 Focus and Mk5 Fiesta before the Mk6 Fiesta came along. It helped you make the most of the Fiesta’s mainstream Duratec petrol engines. The long shift lever sat nice and close to your left thigh with a short-throw action.
Ferrari 599 GTB
- Engine: 6.0-litre V12
- Gearbox: Six-speed manual
- Power/torque: 612bhp/608Nm
- 0-62mph: 3.7 seconds
- Top speed: over 205mph
There's a very good chance that many of you didn’t know a Ferrari 599 GTB could even be ordered with a six-speed manual transmission. At the time, the F1 transmission was the norm in Ferraris of the period. As a result, the manual gearbox was rare, and only between 20-30 examples fitted with one are believed to have left the factory.
Many would argue the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano was born out of the greatest era of supercar engineering we’ve ever seen. This period of the late-2000s drew massive uplift in technical sophistication, the engines were more powerful, more flexible and more charismatic than ever.
Elements such as electronically controlled limited-slip differentials and fast-ratio steering made cars more agile, and magnetic dampers represented huge steps forwards in adaptive suspension technology. However, gearboxes were also part of this revolution, and that’s ultimately what killed the manual gearbox.
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