Vehicles with manual transmissions are increasingly rare on the market, but when this type of gearbox is offered, on the right model, data continues to show that many buyers still prefer it because of the increased driving pleasure it brings.
Such is the case with the BMW Z4 and the Toyota Supra, twin vehicles that were in their fifth year on the market last year.
And the numbers shared by both BMW and Toyota show that 65 percent of units sold in 2024 in the U.S. in 2024 had the manual gearbox.
At BMW
Nearly 1,400 of the 2,129 Z4s sold in 2024 had the 6-speed manual gearbox, which is only available with the 6-cylinder engine (the 4-cylinder can only be twinned with an 8-speed auto transmission).
For the Z4, this was the first year the gearbox was available with this generation of the model, and it drove an increase in sales. Those were up by 13.1 percent compared to 2023, when BMW sold 1,883 units of the Z4.
Clearly, the manual option has contributed to the model’s sales, a fact acknowledged by BMW.
At Toyota
We saw a similar phenomenon over at Toyota, which also reported a 65-percent adoption rate for the manual gearbox. This is an increase on 2023, when 43 percent of buyers opted for the manual gearbox. In 2024, 1,700 of the 2,615 Toyota Supras sold left the factory with a third pedal.
It's also interesting to note that Toyota sold more Supras than BMW sold Z4s. This is surprising given that the Z4 is available as a convertible configuration, while the Supra isn’t.
As reported by Motor1, BMW has seen the manual option become popular in its range - where it is offered. With the M2, the adoption rate is said to be close to 50 percent. For the M3 and M4, the respective figures were lower but still significant, at 20 and 15 percent respectively.
This is further proof that claims of the death of the manual gearbox have been exaggerated, as they say. There will always be buyers for this type of configuration... as long as carmakers continue to offer it.
