Starting in first gear
Good morning. Ferrari built a clutch pedal that isn't connected to anything, and honestly? We're not mad. Somewhere a purist is drafting a forum post with the word "soul" in it three times.
Today: the Senate turned a shareholder registry into a compliance problem, an SLS AMG sold for house money, and Maranello reinvented the stick shift.
In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into
The Auction Desk: $750,000 for an SLS AMG and the wire actually cleared
One Big Story: The Senate just made a shareholder registry a car problem
Engineer’s Corner: Ferrari built a manual gearbox: Manuale By-Wire
Garage Economics: The used market finally exhaled
Let’s roll.
THE AUCTION DESK
$775,000 for an SLS AMG — and the wire actually cleared
Source: Bring a Trailer
A 251-mile 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG sold on Bring a Trailer for $775,000, and for days the internet was certain someone had fat-fingered a keyboard.
Here's why. Bidding sat at $575,000, got nudged to $576,000, then a freshly registered account dropped $775,000 in one swing. Not $577,000. Not a competitive increment. A $199,000 leap that ended the auction on the spot.
Then the receipts showed up. BaT confirmed the bidder typed the number manually and cleared the secondary confirmation screen. The selling dealer said payment arrived in full. Hagerty Price Guide publisher Dave Kinney said he'd reviewed documentation showing the wire cleared — calling the sale real, but an outlier.
For context: the previous SLS record on BaT was $755,000, and that was a Black Series. The best non-Black Series result was $401,000. This car nearly doubled it. It’s window-stick was $223,345 in 2011 — about $339,000 today.
📈 Market signal: One buyer doesn't make a market, and "outlier" is doing heavy lifting. But every SLS owner in America now has a comp to point at, and comps are how markets talk themselves into things. AMG's first fully in-house car, a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8, gullwing doors nobody will build again — that's exactly the profile that gets repriced. Watch the next three sales, not this one.
ONE BIG STORY
The Senate just made a shareholder registry a car problem
On July 22, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously advanced the Connected Vehicle Security Act (S.4429). Everyone covered the headline — "ban Chinese cars." Almost nobody read Section 4.
It doesn't just block vehicles built in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. From January 1, 2027, it would block any connected vehicle from a manufacturer where more than 15% of the equity, voting power, or board control traces back to a covered country.
Now run that math on Mercedes-Benz. State-owned BAIC holds 9.98% of the voting rights — Mercedes' largest shareholder. Geely chairman Li Shufu holds another 9.69% through an investment vehicle. Combined: roughly 19.67%. A German company building SUVs in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, sitting on the wrong side of a line nobody drew with them in mind.
Why it matters to you:
Nothing in your driveway changes. The prohibitions are forward-looking, with no clawback for cars already registered. Your GLE is fine.
The threshold is the whole story. Commerce can grant exemptions, and the Senate can amend 15% to something else before a floor vote. Track that number, not the headline.
It is not law. The House companion is split across three committees, and GovTrack still puts enactment odds in the low single digits. Committee unanimity is not a signature.
Li Shufu also owns Volvo and controls Polestar. One cap table, three brands.
The other side: Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford — who backs the legislation — told an Axios event in Washington that Detroit shouldn't plan around permanent walls. Per the Wall Street Journal, he said America "can't expect to keep them out forever."
The takeaway: The industry spent this year learning that the supply chain is the news. Here's the sequel: the cap table is the news. Compliance used to mean crash ratings and emissions. Now it means knowing who owns stock in your parent company — a spreadsheet no product planner was ever hired to read.
ENGINEER’S CORNER
Ferrari built a manual gearbox: Manuale By-Wire
Source: Ferrari
Ferrari has launched the 12Cilindri Manuale: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12, open metal gate, three pedals. First three-pedal Ferrari since 2012.
Under the tunnel sits the same eight-speed dual-clutch as the standard car. What's new is what Ferrari calls Manuale By-Wire:
The lever isn't connected to anything. Two Hall-effect sensors read where you've moved it through the gate. An electric actuator blocks gear engagement unless you've selected Manual mode.
The clutch pedal isn't either. A position sensor reads pedal travel and converts it into hydraulic actuation of the DCT's clutch.
The feel is still mechanical. A passive mechanical system in the pedal recreates the load-travel curve of a real linkage. Sync your throttle badly and the shift gets ugly. You can stall it.
Six gears and reverse through the gate. Start it with your foot on the clutch and it behaves like a stick. Start it on the brake and it's an automatic — which also unlocks seventh and eighth.
Call it drive-by-wire's final frontier. We accepted electronic throttles two decades ago because the pedal still felt like a pedal. Ferrari is betting the same trick works one input over — for €590,000 against €400,000 for the standard car. That's €190,000 for a clutch pedal, capped at 1,499 units.
The takeaway: Ferrari's last real manual was a 2012 599 GTB — one of just 30 built. Hagerty values those around $700K–$900K, against roughly $180K–$200K for the paddle-shift version. Maranello ran that math and concluded the feeling was the asset, not the linkage. The market is about to grade the answer.
GARAGE ECONOMICS
The used market finally exhaled
Manheim's Used Vehicle Value Index fell to 211.5 in the first half of July — down 0.6% from June, though still 2% above July 2025. The index peaked at 213.9 in mid-June, which makes this a genuine turn rather than noise.
Supply is doing the work. Dealers held 2.14 million used vehicles in June, days' supply climbed to 47, and wholesale supply hit 28 days as off-lease cars come home to roost. Retail used sales fell 1.6% year over year.
For the ledger: leverage is moving back toward the buyer for the first time in months. If you've been waiting to buy, the back half of 2026 looks friendlier than the front. If you're selling, the strong spring is over and every week of hesitation costs you a little.
One outlier: used EVs hit a record 4% share of Manheim's index, with the EV sub-index up 12.4% year over year. Cheap electricity and expensive gas are repricing the segment nobody would touch two years ago.
Also in money news: Volkswagen scrapped its 2026 growth forecast outright — revenue now expected to fall as much as 3%, after Q2 operating profit dropped 9.5% to €3.5 billion. US tariffs are costing the group €4–5 billion a year, and it's weighing up to 100,000 job cuts.
The takeaway: Wholesale is cooling, tariffs are still expensive, and Europe's largest automaker is restructuring in public. Buy used. Sell soon.
🏁 THE COOL-DOWN LAP
Quick hits:
Honda is pausing the manual Civic Si and Acura Integra A-Spec after the 2026 model year — two of America's most affordable three-pedal cars. A leaked plant notice blamed EPA certification; Honda's statement cites "evolving business conditions." Type R and Type S are safe; stock should last into early 2027. Ferrari adds a simulated manual, Honda benches two real ones, same week.
The IIHS found Waymo's driverless vehicles crash 68% less often than human drivers. The robots are now measurably better at the boring part, which was always the hard part.
Honda is opening its heritage vault, with 19 classics reportedly heading to auction. Busy month in Torrance.
Nissan confirmed the Altima is dead, and it isn't going alone. Pour one out for the rental fleet's spiritual home.
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