What manual gear driven car you can buy today in Malaysia

If you are a true car enthusiast and a die-hard cross-state driver, you will keep wanting to shift gears on every single drive. Right? Well, we are here to inform you that the manual gearbox is on its final journey in Malaysia. Of course, for new cars.

It's a well-known fact that only a few drivers these days bother to learn how to drive a manual gearbox, and even fewer still are working towards perfecting the skill of driving with the heel and toe. The fact that so few vehicles are sold with manual transmissions makes it practically unnecessary.

Proton, Perodua, and Toyota each have one compact low range manual driven car in their product range, but there is little interest from Malaysian buyers. Showrooms do not order and keep stock of these models and the buyer will need to order, wait for the car to be built, and then only can they enjoy the drive.

Further up the financial scale, you have Honda with their Type R and Toyota with the GT86 with a manual gearbox. However, the available stock is an issue and you need to place an order currently to get a car in a few months' time.

Mazda will sell you an MX-5 roadster, but on order only. BMW and Porsche have performance models with manual gearboxes, but only a handful are sold and dealers prefer to push for automatic versions that have fancy dual-clutch systems that work in split-second speed. Supercar manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and even Maserati only deliver quick-shifting automatic driven cars.

So, what are true driving enthusiasts going to do if they want a simple brand new manual car? Looks like we need to rely on the used car market to get what we need.

It must be noted that the electric vehicle revolution is coming to Malaysia and it is coming very soon. Yes, we continue to have an issue with the electric vehicle charging infrastructure, but this can be ‘pushed’ forward fast by our government when the time is right.

With the recent National Automotive Policy pushing hard for the assembly of electric vehicles (EV) and the production of EV batteries in Malaysia, they say that we could see a jump in EV ownership by as much as 10,000 vehicles a year in the next 4 to 5 years according to fans of the electric vehicle. We think that the true jump in ownership will be probably slightly half of that bloated figure.

Also Read: A new policy to accelerate Malaysia’s EV industry

Meanwhile, traditionalists like us will keep our petrol-powered, manual-driven cars until further notice and encourage the next generation of car drivers to get a used manual-driven car and keep the tradition of driving alive in years to come.

Also Read: Why are used PHEV vehicles so cheap right now in Malaysia?