Automotive

I read today that BMW is fazing out all manual transmissions.  BMW says you can still

the used market. All 3 of them learned to drive manuals as soon as they got
their driver's licence and all of them have owned or still own a manual.
That is all they want to drive. Our last couple of cars have the paddle shifters,
kinda fun but definitely not the same as manual.

If you live in USA, Cadillac is probably the only company selling a manual transmission car with a V8 in the entire country!  Cadillac Ct5 Blackwing!

I owned a 2022 M4 Competition xDrive before the Blackwing. The BMW is utterly sterile and boring to drive in comparison. I loved the coupe, but for me the car is an extra and purchased for my driving enjoyment. There is just no comparison whatsoever as to which car is more fun to drive. The Blackwing also includes a 6 year 70k powertrain warranty. More than covered for the long term.

Way, way better than what BMW has used in recent years (I have driven 2 recent BMW manuals, they are rubbery and non-precise to me).
If you want an automatic, definitely easier to get. But if you like to row, this is the beast to do it in!

Even Porsche is far from what I would consider to be reliable. As for the one Blackwing engine failure you're probably thinking about - keep in mind, that was probably a press car that was hammered and abused by big editors, then put into some magazine's long-term fleet. Where it was hammered and abused by editors and associate writers. Someone may have mis-shifted badly too if it was a manual car. If you want reliability, go for something truly mass market - a BMW with the B58 "40i" engine that's in the M340i, M440i, 540i, 740i, and 840i. That's probably the most reliable powertrain you can get, but at 375 horsepower, it's probably not considered a "performance car" by some people's standards.

Also very fun to drive, in fact many prefer the extra nimbleness of the smaller and lighter car to the V8 powered CT5-V Blackwing. Not me, but the CT4-V Blackwing is an exceptional machine. And you can now buy them in the 50s if you get them preowned with low mileage.

• Manuals accounted for just 1.7% of total new vehicle sales in the US in 2022. 
• Manual vehicles make up 3.7% of the total registered vehicles in America (8 million versus 202 million)
• New Mexico is highest at abouty 6%, Illinois lowest about 2%.
• Roughly 50% of cars sold in the EU / UK recently had manual transmissions.

number of us old-timers around.

That is the essence of the rage behind these glorious machines. Certainly, they are well designed and tuned for track racing, but it is the inclusion of the manual transmission that has purists like myself in nirvana. Every time I drive that car I smile. I have never done that in another.
All kudos to Cadillac for offering this last hurrah to driving enthusiasts. We know CT5-V Blackwing will be made as a 2025 model, so it soldiers on at least one more year. The front end revisions are not desirable to me. The interior is more largely updated with a large format screen. Also not my cup of tea, but the driving experience is the same. Anyone who wants to own a manual sports car should grab a Blackwing while they can.