The First Vibe Check of This New Era
If you’re seeing this just after reading the previous post then you know that I messed up my own scheduling, pushing it back to Saturday Sunday for a purely innocent reason; to build the case for why Sped matters in 2026.
I want to see this succeed, and I won’t pretend there will be growing pains on occasion. But one thing I am excited for is the return of recaps to reflect on news related to cars. Longtime subscribers know that Sped was initially started as a leisure outlet. For the next chapter of this blog, Vibe Checks remain.
To give you a brief overview, the purpose of the Vibe Check is to seek out significant news and give it a score based on positive, or negative, impact. For instance, lack of demand for the Tesla Cybertruck would rate between 1 to 2, while adding a green paint option for the Nissan Z will receive a 10.
With that in mind, let’s check in on some BFDs that have come out in the last few weeks.
1st Shift: Automatic or Manual Ferrari? Yes.
A resurgence in analog tech has reached an engineer in Maranello. And it spurred Ferrari to offer a manual transmission in the latest V-12 flagship supercar.
Called, rather plainly, the 12Cylindri Manuale, its mission is to balance the best of both worlds. At the center of the transmission tunnel lays an automatic, which can switch to the manual mode at the press of the clutch pedal, allowing you to shift using the gated stick poking out of the middle there.
Although there are six forward gears to row through, the transmission itself has a total of eight, with the top two intended for cruising. At any time, the driver can switch back to the automatic setting, with the ability to go back and forth as they please.
A radical compromise, this manual automatic mishmash actually appeared first in the Koenigsegg CC850, which was commissioned as a tribute to the company’s first model. To better accommodate both audiences, it pioneered a transmission design that won’t shun either.
The manual transmission has been coming back in weird ways. Conversions are taking off for Lamborghini models, as well as various one-offs in Ferraris among others. After committing to an automatic-only lineup for the last decade or so, it’s nice to know that Ferrari is listening to its audience.
Hopefully, Ferrari expands this transmission design to more models. So far, the 12Cylindri Manuale is a promising first step.
2nd Shift: A Clutch Pedal Makes You Smarter So Buy More Of Them
We’re staying on the manual train with the cool news that rowing your own gears have a proven effect of making you smarter. Even better, this comes from the man in charge of Nintendo’s Brain Age games designed to stimulate the mind.
It turns out operating a manual transmission has a similar effect. I’ll let Carscoops take over who translated the study:
(T)he study found that the physical sequence of driving a manual lights up the prefrontal cortex, the region that handles memory, attention, and decision-making. Reading traffic speed, dipping the clutch, picking a gear by hand, and metering the throttle all happen at once, and keeping them coordinated demands a level of engagement that holds the driver’s attention from one moment to the next.
In a country aging as quickly as Japan, asking the brain to juggle those inputs every day functions as a kind of low-grade workout it would otherwise skip. Stimulating neural pathways helps preserve cognitive function in a way that riding passively in an automatic or semi-autonomous vehicle simply cannot match.
Pretty cool right? It’s a shame that Japan has an even lower take rate for new manual cars than the U.S., hovering between 1-2 percent. The campaign to Save The Manuals has never died out but recent efforts by Ferrari and Koenigsegg have fueled renewed interest that three pedals still matter.
Here’s hoping for a trickle-down effect that sees the standard transmission as a regular option again. Pagers are welcome, too.
3rd Shift: I’m Not Sure The Fiat Topolino Can Win Over Americans
Fiat’s return to the U.S. market has largely fallen flat. For a time, it was possible to lease a 500e EV with no money down, which shows how desperate the company is move cars.
The Topolino manages to wear an even cuter mug than the 500e. It also has a sticker price of $14,895. The downside is, you can’t drive it on the road.
This is where the removable doors come in because the Topolino’s biggest competition is a golf cart. It has a top speed of 19 mph and an electric driving range of 46 miles. Supposedly, a conversion kit is coming to turn the dial up on speed which can classify it as a Low-Speed Vehicle. The ace is that this will make it road legal.
But is that good enough? It’s not that Fiat cannot deliver on style, we know it’s got plenty of that. The challenge is the cutesy Italian brand just doesn’t bake enough substance into cars it brings to the U.S. Small cars are necessary in Europe to navigate towns and cities that have been made for walking since the Middle Ages. Kei cars remain popular for the same logic in Japan.
It will take a lot of convincing to make the Topolino a mainstay in the U.S. To pull it off, the slightly bigger 500e needs to emulate greater success. If it’s tempting, head on over to their site and see how damn cute these things are.
Meanwhile, the Topolino is a tough sell.
Weekend Revelation
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-TA