Are H-gate manual gearboxes making a comeback? The boss of Hewland thinks so

In Good News for prospective owners of very high-performance machinery, the boss of a gearbox manufacturer reckons we’re on the cusp of a “major resurgence” of H-gate manual transmissions for said machinery.

Andy Morley (pictured below), managing director of Hewland Engineering, reckons there’s a bit of a revival of the manual ‘box in the hyper-exclusive world of the hypercar.

Speaking to TopGear.com, he noted how the Aston Martin Victor, its Valour successor, the Pagani Utopia and the Koenigsegg CC850 have all proven there’s an appetite for changing gears yourself. In the case of the Pagani, Morley reckons at least one third of the Utopia production run was devoted to manual gearboxes.

“From our perspective, we’re certainly seeing a significant upshift in demand for H-gate transmissions,” Morley told TopGear.com. “Five years ago, we envisaged a future dominated by electric vehicles and predictable automatic transmissions.

“While we have already been involved in half a dozen projects to develop manual gearboxes for high-performance models, we see no signs that this trend is just a flash in the pan. There are plenty of models at the development stage,” he added.

Hewland, if you’re unaware, has been knocking out motorsport-spec gearboxes since 1957 – indeed way back in 1964, Dan Gurney took two wins in a Brabham BT7 F1 car fitted with a Hewland ‘box – and has supplied transmissions to pretty much every level of motorsport.

And it’s done tonnes with ‘regular’ automotive too, and Morley told TG that as a result of the uptick in demand, his team is “putting significant resources back into the area of manual transmissions, most notably technical”. Currently he’s got people working on different layouts and high-torque requirements.

“We are seeing a major move back to manual gearshifts among high performance marques,” he said, “and we think this trend will spread across to other high-performance models.

“Granted, the mass market will be increasingly dominated by EVs, but there will still be a significant element of the car buying public who enjoy the thrill of driving for pleasure – which is where the H gate transmission comes in,” he added.