According to Motor1, the demand for manual transmission cars has doubled over the past two years following a steady multi-year decline – and the price difference may not be the main factor.
In 2021, only 0.9% of new car buyers opted for the stick shift. The current year’s indicator is around 1.7% - nearly twice as high. A similar trend is observed at the used car market, where the share of manual car buyers has gone up from 2.4% to 2.9% over these two years.
The most popular three-pedal cars right now are Honda Civic (shown below), Ford Mustang, Jeep Wrangler and Subaru WRX, as well as Volkswagen’s Golf and Jetta.
The publication points out that, while customers used to prefer manual for its price alone, the price gap between it and automatic has since largely been eliminated, and most buyers nowadays choose it for image-related reasons.
