The Pagani Utopia offers a feature its predecessor, the Huayra, did not: An optional seven-speed gated manual transmission. So far, it's turned out to be far more popular than the single-clutch automated gearbox.
“At the moment, we have over 70 percent of clients who have opted for the manual gearbox," commercial director Hannes Zanon told Motor1 during the Utopia Roadster reveal at Monterey.
The number shouldn't be a surprise. Makers of high-end performance cars from niche manufacturers have seen growing demand for cars with a third pedal. It's a big shift versus 10 years ago, where it seemed everything more expensive than a Miata had an automatic transmission. The transition was no easy task for Pagani, which had to build a gearbox capable of withstanding 811 pound-feet of torque.
"[The gearbox] was tough to develop because it meant for us to develop specific components we can’t find in the market," Zanon said. "You have to develop a gearbox and a clutch that can take that much power and still get the feeling right. It needs to be driveable and it needs to be easy to drive, and it is. So we had to develop our own clutch and start to develop our own clutch inside Pagani. And it’s the first time we’ve done something like that.”
The Utopia's transmission uses a dogleg first gear, where 1st is down and to the left, just below reverse. The clutch is a 215-mm triple disc unit, according to Zanon.
"[The clutch is] not very stressed in that we've over-engineered it," he said. "Most of our clients have very long intervals before they have to change a clutch. Normally, they change a clutch 20,000 to 25,000 kilometers, and that's with some pretty aggressive driving."
Pagani, which has built 40 Utopias so far, isn't alone in offering a stick shift to buyers of high-end sports cars. The manual-equipped Porsche 911 GT3 has long-outsold the PDK version in America. There's also Aston Martin's limited-production Valour, and the newest kid on the block, the Nilu Hypercar.
Demand for manual transmissions at the top of the market is exploding, but the same can't be said for more attainable sports cars. There are less than two dozen performance cars on the market right now you can get with a stick shift, and BMW—maker of four of those cars—is expected to drop the manual before the end of the decade.
Our hope is that demand for the manual gearbox trickles down over time, though with hybridization and active safety systems becoming more and more prevalent in the market, it's tough to assume a positive outcome. At least the rich are happy. That's all that matters, right?
Jeff Perez contributed to this report.
