This is a new debate that is quietly raging. Many car enthusiasts say they strongly prefer to row their own gears, yet exotic car sales show just the opposite.

Paddle-shifted transmission sales are approaching 100 per cent for Ferrari and Lamborghini.

A lot of the special Ferrari models are only offered in F1, like the 430 Scuderia, 360 Challenge Stradale and Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera.

Isnt it an oddity that enthusiasts vocally say they love their manual transmissions, yet Ferrari and Lamborghini sales are nearly 95 per cent F1 transmissions?

Who is buying?

Then, who is buying all these exotic cars with F1 transmissions if the car enthusiasts declare they want manual transmissions?

And why should a manufacturer bother offering a manual transmission on a limited run of, say, 750 cars if the manual transmission take rate is only five per cent?

Do they really want to deal with the manufacturing complexity to sell a paltry 37 cars with a manual, when they can simplify their process dramatically by standardising the F1 transmission and at the same time charging a hefty premium for it?

Highly persuasive

And therein lies the answer to our conundrum. The missing link, it is believed, is that the manufacturers prefer to sell F1 transmissions and thus encourage the dealers, who are highly persuasive individuals and, by the way, highly incentivised to sell US$10,000 paddle-shift transmissions.

This means the true preference of the car enthusiast is being ignored and rolled over. The marketing folks then point to the sales results that no one wants a low-tech manual transmission to validate their decision to further popularise and institutionalise the F1 transmission.

Keep in mind that, already in the United States, traditional automatic transmissions dominate mass market cars at roughly 90 per cent of all cars produced.

Rapidly migrating

Now, we are witnessing the remaining small number of manual transmissions sold are rapidly migrating the way of a semi-automatic shifting method.

Manufacturers cannot justify the manufacturing and logistics complexity if take rates are too low. The manual transmission may very likely go the way of the dinosaur within the next few years.

Is this really happening? Could the manual transmission be going silently extinct before our very eyes?

Are the dealers really using persuasion to talk exotic car owners into higher cost, high-tech F1 shifters? Will there be a revival of manual transmissions?