Tradition Wins Again.

Tradition Wins Again.

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Dear friends, I have just learned that something has happened that I consider a very good omen. Actually, I consider it the normal way things work, because it works this way a lot of times. The normal way things work is that people tend to go back to what worked, and what they loved and were attached to, after a period od disorientation due to novelties of various kind.

Let me make some example first.

Take watches. As I was a child, the mechanical watch seemed doomed. The quartz mechanism was so superior and so much cheaper, that really there was no contest. The updated version would obviously clean up and consign the mechanical watch to the dustbin of history. Only, people kept loving mechanical watches, because they were, and are, the most authentic, most beautiful expression of what a watch is. It was a long process, but we know how that went.

Or take vinyl records. Somewhat of the same story. An “obsolete” technology was meant to die because of the aggiornamento of the CD. Last time I looked, there were more vinyl records sold than CDs. May it long last. Yes, I am one of those. I love doing things the way my forefathers did, whenever there is a beauty and an intrinsic rightness in it that the new ways do not have.

The last example came today. If you are a petrolhead like me, you will know of the silent (initially), then more and more vocal revolt of the drivers against the apparent death of the clutch pedal. The same story repeated here that we have seen above. With the manual gearbox, it was actually more disruptive than with watches and vinyl records. It was a real controversy.

The market, in the end (that is: the people) decided it. When a Ferrari 599 in manual costs a multiple of the same car in semiautomatic, you know a revolution is going on. When an entire cottage industry of “manual conversions” (something extremely complex to do for even a very refined tuner and car engineering solution company) emerges from nothing just because Ferrari does not give to his clients a manual gearbox anymore, and the few semi-oldish Ferraris with a manual gearbox are prohibitively expensive, you know that there has been a shift in culture. Ferrari is a true whale in this space. Nothing else comes close. Ferrari is the main car “investment” vehicle, it is the main legend maker, it is simply the undisputed number one, and nobody else comes even close.

In the last years, the dams started to break. The cry of the (moneyed, and congrats to them!) buyers of supercars and hypercars was becoming more and more loud. Actually deafening. Something had to happen. Again, this is not like deciding to continue making mechanical watches. This is the conscious decision to spend a lot of money to do what the people are crying that they want. The pressure was too high. It was a matter of not losing face.

The first sign was from a genial Argentinian guy (this is, believe me, an excellent Argentinian!) called Horacio Pagani of the elite Italian car company, Pagani Automobili. This guy launches an 840HP car, and says “you can have it in manual.” Really a complex thing to do. But of course he did it, his rich clients kept pestering him for it!

Still, it was a genius from Sweden (but of German descent; actually from a noble German family which traces back to the crusades!) called Christian von Koenigsegg of the eponymous car maker (look it up!) really started the dance. He created an incredible, sophisticated, light, absolutely superb gearbox that works both in manual and in automatic. A proper, proper work of art and demonstration of technological know-how. So he shows technological prowess and love for his traditionalist clients. He also shows it is possible to have a manual with extremely high performance engines. The first model with this solution was the CC850, others will follow. 3 million euros and it’s yours, but it is not this that count; what counts is that the culture has shifted, nature has healed, civilisation has gone in the right direction: giving people what they have always loved rather than what you think is what they are supposed to want, or must have.

Then, and this is also recent, another step, also with the influence of those glorious brains at Koenigsegg: the Kimera K39. This is a Lancia 037-inspired hypercar, actually now a completely different project. A Koenigsegg engine with an absolutely monstrous torque of 1200 nm, which would have triturated most gearboxes out there. Three companies come together on this: Kimera automobili, the (originally) Lancia wizards from Cuneo, Piedmont. The very same Koenigsegg, for the first time giving its engines to an external company (Kimera has low production numbers and an extremely high reputation); and another beautiful expression of Italian engineering, a very sophisticated producer of high-performance gearboxes called Costruzione Italiana Macchine Attrezzi, to me and you CIMA. They did what seemed unthinkable until just a short time ago: a (small) series production of a 1000ps, 1200nm (!!) hypercar with a manual gearbox.

If you don’t know the world of cars, you have absolutely no idea of the effort that took in doing these things. It really was a technological revolution that followed the change in culture. When the culture changed, the solution was sought and found, because the right side had already won, the market only had to catch up with the new reality.

The big bastion, however, remained unmoved. Like an infinitely more intelligent Tucho, Ferrari kept saying that the age of manual gearboxes was gone; that Ferrari is for modernity; that if you want to have a manual gearbox, you’ll have to buy an old car. People listened and actually started doing just that. Then they liked it a lot and started saying that there is no sense in buying a new Ferrari, the old ones being so much fun and still more than fast enough for most roads and situations. Plenty of F550 in the market, all with manual gearbox. But also most 360, an awful lot of 430, and all the models before them. This was the sign that something had to change. But Ferrari admitted, basically, nothing, though some extremely savage rumour had started to go around.

Today, suddenly, this bomb explodes:

It really is a revolution. It’s not a normal manual gearbox, as Ferrari did not want to lose face. They have just spent an awful lot of money to lose with grace. It’s a less sophisticated solution than Koenigsegg’s, but boy it is brilliant.

Mind, this is stuff vastly outside of my wallet, exactly as a Gothic cathedral is vastly outside of my wallet. But this is civilisational stuff, this is culture that changes. Tradition is always very hard to kill, and those who want to kill it are often disappointed. What people once loved will not easily be given up. You will always have a phase where all seems lost, and where people tell you that yes, they are now going to do it differently, whether you like it or not.

Until you just force them to change course, just out of the sheer force of the people’s conviction.

My dear readers: if in something so mundane like records, watches, or cars, tradition has survived, how can you doubt that Christ will leave us alone where Tradition really, really counts?

I suggest that you first watch the video, if you are so inclined, and then bask in the wonderful feeling that we have already won, that the whole planet is explaining to us how the unavoidable victory will unfold, and that the love for Christ is, by God’s grace, so much more resilient than the love for any clutch pedal.

I really hope nobody loses sleep over Pervost and his Queerdinal.

Relax and enjoy the battle.

We have already won.

HI-FI News

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July 3, 2026 at 11:50PM into Ukrainian. Only returned the text that has been translated.

July 3, 2026 at 11:50PM