Last month, while the world’s sports car manufacturers were busy trying to win the Le Mans 24-Hour race, rumours heated up around trademark filings that suggested there was going to be the reveal of a Ferrari with a manual transmission. It’s a development that has fans of the prancing horse salivating, and hints to the Italian manufacturer embracing the concept of the driver being more in control of what its sports car is doing.

Initial rumours and reports had suggested the announcement might come during the race itself, but that came and went, and since then, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna has revealed a little more, along with the uncovering of a patent filing which indicates that a reveal may still be close.

As reported by Autocar, Vigna, while speaking to US Ferrari dealers at a convention in Las Vegas, reportedly told them cryptically that “the public will see something new where we put together something from the past with eyes on the future”.

While that comment from the boss doesn’t detail what would be an all-new car, impetus behind rumours a manual transmission is about to return certainly adds up.

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First uncovered by CarBuzz, the patent filing is significantly more likely to indicate the impending arrival, with the filing being for ‘a control tower of a gearbox for road vehicles’, submitted by Ferrari and published on the 11th of June. The patent filing shows a clear and detailed line drawing of a manual gear shifter.

The drawing of a conventional H-pattern, gated shifter seems to point to a remotely operated system that might control an existing dual-clutch or automated gearbox, given no physical connection is shown. The shifter features six gated slots, as well as buttons marked ‘M’, ‘R’, ’N’ and ‘D’.

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A second patent application, filed by Ferrari on the 14th of May, described ‘an electronic clutch for road vehicles’, which would also indicate a third pedal in the footwell. It would be electronic, but in theory would operate like a conventional clutch pedal. In relation to the operation of the clutch pedal, the patent wording included a ‘detection device’ that would ‘supply an electrical signal to an electronic control unit… configured to control the operation of the electronic clutch itself’.