Stick it to them! The battle for the BMW M2 Coupe to keep the manual transmission, but for how long?

BMW has revealed that factions both within and outside of the company fought hard to maintain a manual transmission option in its best-selling M2 Coupe.

Unveiled globally in series-exclusive Zandvoort Blue earlier this month, and flown down secretly to the annual Motorclassica show in Melbourne, the G87 M2 will arrive by the middle of next year in with the choice of either a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Speaking to CarsGuide at the Melbourne BMW dealership relaunch in South Melbourne last week, BMW Australia’s head of product and market planning, Brendan Michel, emphasised the importance of retaining a three-pedal M car in the range for as long as commercially viable.

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“The M engineering guys in Munich had a big battle to make sure (the manual transmission availability) stayed in development,” he revealed.

“And I think even (M Division CEO) Frank van Meel at an M event in South Africa confirmed that a manual transmission will live for the remainder of this decade.”

Along with the improvements in performance and new features that the M2 redesign will bring next year, Mr Michel believes these attributes should help the series retain the top spot in M Division’s sales hierarchy.

“The previous generation was our highest-selling M car,” he said. “I have no doubt that this will potentially be our highest selling M car as well.

“The previous generation was missing some key M features… it didn’t have a carbon roof, it didn’t have a head-up display, it didn’t have adaptive M suspension. That’s all been sorted with this generation. Price point is $119,900… and it’s still got the manual transmission.”

To elaborate, the comments about the future of the manual transmission from the M Division boss were made at a press conference at South Africa’s Kyalami Grand Prix circuit surrounding the 50th anniversary celebrations of the BMW performance arm.

"You don't need to be afraid of the manual going away," Mr van Meel told US publication CarBuzz at the event.

BMW will continue to offer a three-pedal M car as long as it's commercially viable.

It follows on from a statement made earlier that day, where he explained M Division’s position on the manual gearbox in future BMWs.

"The manual is, unfortunately, not so widespread anymore,” Mr van Meel said. “It's more in the segments of the M2 and M3 and the M4.

“And for those cars, we continue offering the manual, and those cars will run for a long time… until the end of this decade.”

M Division’s vice president of customer, brand and sales, Timo Resch, added that buyers are not ready to let go of the manual gearbox, even though BMW’s engineers have shown time and again that the automatic versions of cars like the M2 are both faster and more fuel efficient in most circumstances.

“It was a big campaign from a lot of markets,” he said. “We have customers putting up petitions online and voting and pretty much asking for us to keep the manual."