Shifting sands

Manual superminis may have dwindled in number as auto 'boxes take control but, as STEPHEN DOBIE discovers, stick-shifters are far from old news

- PHOTOGRAPHY SIM MAINEY

Reports of the manual gearbox's death are greatly exaggerated.

Or at least they appear to be. While Mini no longer sells a manual and the retirement of attainable heroes such as the Ford Fiesta and Focus has eroded some of the affordable driving fun from our showrooms, there's still plenty of joy to be found if you look hard enough.

A vaguely scientific sweep of the configurators identifies 66 mainstream models still sold on British shores with a manual transmission as standard. We're not talking unobtanium GMA T50s and stratospheric Singer restogods, nor even the Porsche 718 and 911 or BMW M2. This is all sub-£40k, honest-to-goodness stuff.

Eight out of the UK's 10 bestsellers of 2025 offer DIY gearshifting. Hyundai and Volkswagen appear to be the unlikely champions of the art, offering seven models apiece with a stick and three pedals at their entry point. How much you truly desire a Bayon or Taigo shall, for today, be pushed to the peripheries, but the mere fact that you can row along a sensible little crossover yourself feels like good news enough, not least if it's your randomly allocated prize in the holiday hire car lottery.

With a spot of luck, however, you might get the car pictured here. Cheap, light, effervescent cars have been a speciality of the French for decades - just witness the reborn Renault 5 tearing up EV preconceptions for proof that the Gallic knack continues. And for all the GTi, VTS and RS hall-of-famers, there are dozens of dowdier hatchbacks that offer a healthy fraction of the fun with much lower running costs.

The 208 Style across these pages is as cheap as a brand-new Peugeot currently gets, starting at £20,495 with a 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo engine driving its front wheels - through, you guessed it, a six-speed manual gearbox.