If you were left hoping that the all-new, C8 Chevrolet Corvette would come with a manual gearbox, we've got bad news. That's because it's not happening.
Not today, not tomorrow. Never.
While we were hoping that General Motors would surprise us down the road, it's certainly dead according to the latest reports. That's because the Corvette's lead engineer, Tadge Juechter, has officially weighed in.
He noted that the current take rate for a do-it-yourself gearbox is about 15 percent and, simply put, that's not enough to justify creating a manual transmission. So, it's not happening.
...When I asked Corvette lead engineer Tadge Juechter at the reveal of the 2020 Corvette on Thursday if there is any chance the manual will come back, he replied simply: “No.”
Juechter said a manual-equipped Corvette wouldn't sell well enough to make it worth a supplier’s effort to develop.
“We couldn’t find anybody honestly who’d be willing to do it. Because just like the automatic, the DCT, it would have to be a bespoke manual,” Juechter said. “It’s low volume, very expensive. The reason is it’s a low-volume industry. That industry is dying—building manual transmissions..."
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