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Originally Posted by 530iDriver
That maybe it, but so called enthusiasts are part of an immense minority of buyers and they seem to only exist in internet message boards as this one.
That ship sailed a long time ago. BMW builds vehicles where there is market demand. People want smooth ride, gizmos galore, flaccid steering, etc, etc and that is exactly what they are delivering.
The enthusiast has to step to a more expensive model or a M-Car.
As much as some here long for the days of manual transmissions, hydraulic power steering, station wagons, interiors fitted with the bare necessities for driving, those days are gone. Market realities today are vastly different of what they were 20 years ago. The concept of automobile ownership and user interaction is drastically changing. Mobility in the next 20-30 years could possible be mostly automation and likely will not have to own cars anymore. Heck even younger generations are not as vested into car ownership as us old timers did back in our day.
Look how the Cadillac ATS flopped in the marketplace. By all accounts it was the perfect enthusiast tuned and oriented sports sedan. Small, balanced, RWD, manual transmission.... no one cared!! GM will axe it if it hasn't already.
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Regarding the ATS, you are right, no one was interested. It was the follow-up to the E90 that BMW should have produced IMO; just 15 years too late. However, the magazines pissed on it first because of CUE and a tight back seat, then because of the gauges, then because the windows were too small (LOL), which kept the public away, also saddled with Cadillac's (GM's) long-since-past quality issues of the 1980's and early 1990's. I also think it would have had better market share had GM not put the Iron Duke in it for the rental fleet, but rather spent the money offering the V6 with a manual transmission. I would have bought an ATS in 2014 had it been offered with the V6 and a manual.
It'll be interesting to see the take up rate of the Genesis G70 with a manual trans and the turbo 4-banger. I doubt it drives as nice as the ATS.
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A manual transmission can be set to "comfort", "sport", and "track" modes simply by the technique and speed at which you shift it; it doesn't need "modes", modes are for manumatics that try to behave like a real 3-pedal manual transmission. If you can money-shift it, it's a manual transmission. "Yeah, but NO ONE puts an automatic trans shift knob on a manual transmission."