[VIDEO] Cammisa Puts Ferrari’s New Simulated Gated Manual to the Test

Oct 24, 2026

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[VIDEO] Cammisa Puts Ferrari's New Simulated Gated Manual to the Test

What’s my purpose on this planet? How does one age gracefully? Would Sir Mix-a-Lot rather have a woman with a small butt, or no woman at all? This everchanging world can keep you up at night with these and countless other existential questions.

Before you say anything, no, this episode of one of, if not the, best automotive show on the ‘net isn’t actually about Corvettes – this one was, and the level of incredible it put on display made Bob Parr look ordinary! What it does though, is extensively and entertainingly cover one of the hottest topics facing a conflicted Corvette Nation in 2026; manual transmissions.

Last weekend we admitted that the days of manuals being the ‘standard’ transmission are well and truly over. We asked fans how much they’d pay to bring back an optional stick shift in a future Corvette. A convincing 66% of responders indicated they’d be willing to part with anywhere between $1,000 and $25,000 (skewed heavily to the $1k-5k side of the graph) to get a third pedal installed by the factory when the C9 Corvette arrives in the coming years.

Because of the minimal hardware changes, the lack of required overhead and no need to recertify with the EPA, the most likely way for the stick to reappear between the ‘Vette’s seats is through a “synthetic” by-wire system that simulates a traditional clutch pedal and shift pattern using cleaver programming and the current dual-clutch transaxle.

In July, Ferrari announced that it’d be the first automaker to offer this new-wave manual transmission in a limited run of its 12Cilindri front engine super GT – if you’re curious, the answer to the poll mentioned above is a whopping $200,000 in Ferrari-ville… buyers are voluntarily adding the cost of a new Corvette ZR1 to their 12Cilindri to get their mitts on one of the 1,499 planned units with the simulated “Manuale” transmission.

Jason Cammisa on the History of Automobile Transmissions

Full reviews of the 12Cilindri Manuale (12 Cylinder Manual in Italian) hit the web this week. A naturally aspirated 396 cubic inch, 819-horsepower V12 from Maranello makes things interesting enough on its own, but the real curiosity was wrapped up in the first factory manual transmission from the Prancing Horse in a decade and a half. How does it work? How does it feel? How convincing is its programing? Everyone wanted to know if this could be the tech that saves a beloved aspect of enthusiast driving in an age where budgets for specialty vehicles have been cut razor thin.

On top of attempting to adequately answer all those questions, in the latest episode of Icons by Hagerty, “professional idiot,” Jason Cammisa drops his best demonstration/history lesson since explaining flat-plane crankshafts with an amped-up drummer friend for Motor Trend when the Shelby GT350 hit the scene.

Between romps in the not-nearly-as-pretty-as-its-predecessor 12Cil, Jason takes us on a journey through the surprisingly parallel Histories of the Manual and Automatic transmission in a segment heavy with innovations from General Motors and an F355 Berlinetta F1 that makes you question why the new Ferrari doesn’t sound nearly as good (we know one’s a V8 and one’s a V12, but the 12 doesn’t come off nearly as stirring as what Lamborghini is putting out there right now) before settling on a theory; the Ferrari’s manual/dual-clutch mashup might not be as pure as what you can get in a Miata, but it’s still possibly the perfect solution. It blends the pros of both automatics and those of manuals in a way that the engineers of 1939 could only dream of.

Check out the whole thing below – it’s definitely worth 37 minutes of your time – then let us know how you’d answer the existential Corvette question of our times; if it was the only way to shift your own gears, would you give a synthetic manual a shot in your next ‘Vette for a reasonable upcharge, or would you rather keep the stick in the past where it will be fondly remembered as the genuine article?