By Tim Harris, Blair Smith & Shinoo Mapleton · July 17, 2026

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Tim has had time to reflect on the Maranello interview. It did not improve on reflection.

The receptionist quietly handing him the museum brochure is the third act of a comedy that started three episodes ago with Agent Claude declaring Tim uniquely qualified for the Chief Luce Officer role. The white New Balances at Maranello were always going to be the problem. Ferrari executives dress like Ferrari executives. Tim dresses like the successful American real estate professional he actually is. The two dress codes were never going to meet in the middle.

Blair's on-air position, for the record: "I'd trade a Luce for a ZR1 personally." So would we. Which brings us to this week's centerpiece, because Ferrari announced something else this week that has us asking the same question the receptionist was quietly asking Tim — is this really what you thought you were signing up for?

Pencil this in: Friday, August 14, evening. We're finalizing a venue (candidates include a couple of restaurants Shinoo knows well and possibly a brewery), and we're inviting the Full Throttle Talk community, Shinoo's Lotus clientele, and possibly Caterham in an informal capacity to come make a showing. If you're going to be in Monterey for Car Week, come find us. Details firm up over the next two weeks. Shoot us a DM to get on the list:

Here it is. The story of the week. Ferrari confirmed the long-rumored manual option for the 12Cilindri — and it's not actually a manual.

The technology is what Ferrari is calling an eManual. Underneath, it's still the same dual-clutch transmission. Layered on top is an electronic clutch-by-wire system with a shift lever that simulates manual behavior. Ferrari's own description of the experience is worth reading in full because they've clearly thought about how to sell it:

Read that carefully. Ferrari engineered a lever that feels like moving gear sets. A clutch that feels properly weighted. Everything about the language is about the simulation of a manual, not a manual.

Blair's frustration is that Ferrari has said, on the record, that they're doing this because customer demand for a manual was real. Their explanation for why they didn't do a real one: no conventional manual gearbox can handle 800 horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque, and repackaging the floor plan to fit one would have required rebuilding the car around it. Both of those are probably true. And also — both of those are things Ferrari's engineers could have solved, given the same budget they clearly spent on the eManual instead.

Blair's frame is direct: if the demand is really there, build a real one. Manual take rates on the cars that do offer the option are stubbornly high — GT3 buyers pick the manual at roughly 70–80%. The Emira take rate has been strong. The M3 CS was de-tuned specifically to keep the manual viable. Somebody, in every one of these segments, is voting with a checkbook for the real thing. Ferrari looked at that data and built a very expensive simulator instead.

Shinoo's take is more sanguine. The video-game generation grew up with virtual driving experiences, and the line between "real" and "simulated" is much blurrier for a 30-year-old buyer than it is for us. F1 drivers spend real hours in simulators to prep for races on real circuits. Some manufacturers will pull this off convincingly and some won't. Ferrari has the resources to be one of the ones that does. Personally, though? "I'm going to continue to drive old analog cars for fun. That's what it means for me." Same, honestly.

The concern Shinoo raised in a group chat with fraternity brothers still working in the automotive engineering world: the service reality in 20 years. The eManual is a stack of electronic control modules layered on top of an already-complex dual-clutch. When those modules are no longer supported, the whole assembly is unsupportable — and the car may just become uneconomic to keep on the road. Analog cars from the 80s and 90s are still being driven and maintained because their systems are legible. The modern cars may not have that longevity, no matter how much money you paid.

The final piece of the story that bothered us: Ferrari's global marketing director spoke this week about Chinese EV competition and made the case that Chinese cars are technically excellent but "behind in driving emotion." Which is Ferrari saying, correctly, that emotion is their defensible edge. Then they built a fake manual. If your defensible edge is emotion and authenticity, and your response to demand for a manual is a simulation of a manual — you have just handed the emotion argument back to whoever wants to build the real thing next. Somebody in Hethel, per a little bird Shinoo spoke to recently, is already talking about doing exactly that. Lotus is quietly saying feel is their next investment thesis. Watch that space.

Porsche's UK arm is offering a GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition to mark the 75th anniversary of Porsche UK. A limited allocation, a bespoke green color, and a "register your interest" mechanism that appears designed to route around dealer markups. This is the shape of Porsche's new strategic direction — lower volume, higher margin, direct-to-enthusiast where possible. The Ferrari playbook, applied. More on that below.

McLaren Special Operations recreated Bruce McLaren's original 1969 M6 GT road car. Small block Chevy V8. Five-speed manual. Original body molds. Period-correct engineering — no restomod componentry hidden inside. This is the McLaren press moment we've been waiting for. Shinoo's read: McLaren has been chasing peak-performance numbers for a decade while quietly losing the story about who they are. A recreation of the road car Bruce McLaren himself wanted to build in the late 60s is exactly the kind of gesture that reminds the market they have a heritage worth trading on.

Shinoo's broader take on McLaren from actual seat time: they're a big Lotus in the best sense of the phrase — both English, and McLaren very likely poached Lotus engineers along the way. The 720S was a genuine ergonomic leap for the mid-engine segment — proper visibility, minimal blind spots, a fishbowl of a greenhouse. Hydraulic steering has been retained across the modern lineup. What holds McLaren back for Shinoo isn't the chassis — it's the twin-turbo V8 soundtrack, which never quite rises above a 5-out-of-10 for drama compared to what a naturally aspirated flat-plane V8 in the same chassis would do. If McLaren dropped a GT3-sourced 4.0-liter in a carbon monocoque, the conversation would look very different.

Two auction results this week made the "what enthusiasts actually want" argument in dollar terms. Both are shocking. Both are consistent with a trend we've been tracking for months.

The F355 used to be a car we recommended as an attainable Ferrari entry point. Six-speed manual. Gorgeous. Sounds transcendent. The reliability reputation is, charitably, rough — Blair has two friends who have owned these cars and both spoke about the ownership experience with real bitterness. That reputation kept prices down for years.

Not anymore. This one sold on Bring a Trailer for $290,000 with 20,000 miles — real miles, not garage-queen miles. That's a car that used to trade at $80,000–$130,000 not that long ago.

Shinoo's read: the reliability stories are still true. But the market is now willing to pay for the car because so few of them are being driven. There's a secondary effect worth naming — low-mileage cars have often been sitting rather than being driven, and cars that sit develop their own problems. A well-maintained higher-mileage car is often a better ownership proposition than a pristine trailer queen. But the auction market doesn't reward that math. It rewards the odometer.

Blair's dream car is officially unattainable.

A 2010 997.2 GT3 RS in white with the red livery, 10,000 miles, hammered on Bring a Trailer for $572,000 — call it $580K with the buyer fee. For context, a 10,000-mile new 992 GT3 RS trades for around $350–370K. This ten-year-old car sold for $200K more than the newer one. Blair had this car on his "favorite Porsche" list not long ago at a $250K estimate. The market moved past him. Fast.

The reading is unambiguous: the market has decided the analog-era manual GT cars from the early-to-mid 2000s are the ones enthusiasts actually want. Not the new ones. Not the newer new ones. The peak of the GT3 line, in Blair's read, was 2010. The 997.2 was the last of a certain kind of Porsche.

The SpaceX millionaire theory applies here, per Shinoo — a large cohort of newly wealthy engineers grew up dreaming about specific cars and now have the money to buy them at any price. That's real demand from real buyers, not speculation. But there's also a speculative overlay: enthusiasts who never intended to drive these cars, who bought them years ago as a hedge against a broader collectible-car boom, are now sitting on assets that have appreciated dramatically. Which means these cars aren't being driven. Which is a shame. A GT3 RS of any generation should be tracked regularly, not sat on. Somebody bought this car this week. We hope they drive it. We suspect they won't.

The setup: you can own only two cars. One has to daily-drive. One can be anything you want. What do you buy? We ran both budgets.

Shinoo went unexpected. His two picks:

Blair went predictable and correct:

Shinoo stayed in character:

A brief but real Jeep death-wobble PSA from Shinoo for anyone considering a Wrangler (Blair is looking at one for his soon-to-be-16-year-old daughter): the infamous death wobble is real, but it's often diagnosable and fixable. Shinoo's wife's Rubicon had it. The fix was switching from off-road tires to street tires — stiffer sidewalls, more solid tread blocks, the wobble went away. If you're buying a Wrangler for a young driver, do the tire swap first. High center of gravity plus death wobble plus a nervous 16-year-old is a bad combination.

Blair picked more mainstream:

Wendy asked the question that ties the whole issue together: which manufacturer is making the most interesting cars right now, and which one has completely lost its way?

Shinoo went first.

Most interesting: Toyota. The GR product line is genuinely cool. The hybrid strategy has worked. The GR86 is a legitimately fun enthusiast car at a sane price point (and almost made his $50K garage — worth considering seriously as an alternative to the Miata). Even the new Prius finally looks like a car he'd own — which is a low bar Toyota styling has failed to clear for the better part of thirty years. The rumored MR2 we covered a few issues back is the next data point on the same trajectory. Toyota is being run by enthusiasts and it shows.

Lost their way: Ferrari. The Luce is bad. The 12Cilindri's fake manual is worse. The new Testarossa Edition styling has landed with a thud. As the premier brand in the segment, they're underdelivering and riding coattails. Shinoo's Porsche take is more measured — Porsche is still doing enough right that they're not the lost-their-way answer.

Blair went differently.

Most interesting: Lotus. Lotus was losing its way with the Eletre EV SUV a few years ago — a car that seemed to have nothing to do with what Lotus actually stands for. The Emira, the return to internal combustion investment, and the rumored feel-first engineering thesis all suggest Lotus is course-correcting toward what made them Lotus in the first place. Blair is genuinely interested.

Lost their way: Porsche. This is the provocative take. Not because Porsche doesn't still build interesting cars — they clearly do. But because they're pursuing the Ferrari playbook of going upmarket, chasing higher-margin, more special-edition, more clout-adjacent buyers — and in doing so are quietly abandoning what actually made Porsche_ Porsche._ The entry-level lightweight manual sports car — the thing Porsche used to be a synonym for — is not currently in their lineup. The Cayman and Boxster are gone or going. The Carrera T is $175K optioned. The GT3 is $300K and impossible to allocate. For a brand whose old marketing line was "There is no substitute," the answer to "what should a young enthusiast actually buy new from Porsche?" is currently... nothing. Blair thinks that's a real problem, and one Porsche is choosing rather than being forced into.

Shinoo's constructive addition, aimed directly at Zuffenhausen if they happen to read this newsletter: invest in supporting parts and service for the previous generations. Porsche brought a factory-refurbished 996 to Rennsport Reunion at Monterey a few years back specifically to show the world how good that maligned generation actually is. The 996 has been creeping up in value as enthusiasts rediscover it. If Porsche committed real budget to parts availability and refurbishment support for older cars, the entry point back into the brand would still exist. There's an old Ferrari saying — an entry-level Ferrari is a used Ferrari — and it would work for Porsche too, if Porsche wanted it to.

The pattern Blair closed on, tying the auction results back to the manufacturer question: when your old car is worth more than your used newer car, that is the market telling you something. The 991.2 GT3 is now roughly equivalent to the 992 GT3 in market value. The E46 M3 has caught up to the F80. Every one of those data points is enthusiasts saying, quietly, with checkbooks, that the manufacturer made better cars 10 to 20 years ago than they're making today. That's a signal worth listening to.

The final version of the answer to Wendy: the automaker most likely to be making the best cars ten years from now is the one that's listening to that signal now. By Blair and Shinoo's read, that's Toyota and Lotus. Not Ferrari. Not Porsche. Not yet.

🎙 Listen to the full episode here: https://youtu.be/oGDrrVVbpW8?si=Hwm67o4Rd76d7re_

– Tim, Blair & Shinoo

🏁 The Full Throttle Talk Team

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