After the information about BMW abandoning manual transmission for the U.S. market got out, many car lovers were left livid but then another information got out that the new M3 might abandon rear-wheel drive entirely as the new car’s eight-speed gearbox was designed to work with the modern xDrive system.

While there might be hope for a manual option, BMW is alleged not to have made up it’s mind yet as far as the M3 is concerned. it remains a pretty slim prospect, as BMW has admitted that manual sales are on a rapid decline and don’t really make it a lot of money.

While car enthusiasts might not be seeing any traditional stick in the rest of the M3 Series, BMW itself made notes through their blog that the manual transmission can be still be an integral parts of the future release hence we thought 2020 might be the year.

According to the BMW Blog:

BMW is also trying to figure out whether the car offered should be all-wheel drive or remain RWD as tradition dictates. At the moment, all possibilities are taken into account in meetings in Munich but if a manual choice is to be offered, chances are it won’t be with the M xDrive system as that’s made to work with the ZF 8-speed gearbox. Creating an all-wheel drive system from scratch to work with a manual gearbox might be too costly to develop and may take too long in the development process.

There is also speculations that there will be an easy solution by offering an electronic drift mode which sends most of the power to the aft of the vehicle. If that.

Now if that is true, there would be little to no sense in developing an archaic substitute for the automatic transmission. The next-gen M3 is scheduled to launch in 2020, with an unknown setup. We’d advise you to hold out hopes — but not your breath — on BMW delivering a version that includes a clutch pedal.