Electrohydraulic Manual Transmission - Use in Road Cars

Use in Road Cars

The most famous application of a sequential transmission on road-cars would be their use in some Ferraris since the late-nineties, beginning with the F355 F1. Their system, the most current version of which is called "F1-Superfast," with shift times of 60 ms is designed to serve as a link to their Formula One efforts. This technology has also trickled down to the cars of their sister company, Maserati where it is known as "Cambiocorsa". Alfa Romeo's Selespeed in 1999 was the first sequential transmission in a mainstream car, derived from the Ferrari system.

BMW offered a system simply called "sequential manual gearbox" (SMG) on the E36 M3, and later "SMG-II" on the E46 M3. The BMW SMG transmission has both automatic and manual shift modes. Inside the different modes there are different programmes, with six settings to control the upshift/downshift speed for manual operation, and five settings for automatic mode.

Later, the 3rd generation Toyota MR2 used Toyota's version, known as the "Sequential Manual Transmission" (SMT). Although it does not perform as well as the European-designed transmissions, Toyota's is the cheapest system to manufacture, and the MR2 is the least expensive car to possess a true sequential gearbox.

Finally, Volkswagen Group (parent owner of Lamborghini) introduced a sequential transmission to the Lamborghini Gallardo (E gear), and then adding it to the Audi R8 (R tronic).

BMW has since switched over to a Getrag dual clutch transmission in the latest M3, and Ferrari as well in 2009 with the California and 458 Italia.