The $17,190 base-model Nissan Versa S, the last U.S.-market production car with a five-speed manual, is ending production. According to Automotive News, the manual Versa is the latest automotive tariff victim, as all Versas are built at Nissan’s Aguascalientes, Mexico, plant and the base car is least popular. Looks like Nissan is trying to create as much savings as possible to handle the 25% tariff on cars imported from Mexico.
A Nissan spokesperson told Auto News that it’s trimming the fat down to the models with the “strongest business performance.” The Drive reached out to Nissan for a comment, and we’ll update this story if we get more details.
When you go to Nissan’s site and check out the Versa, the first thing you see under its name is “Get the Nissan you want free from new tariffs.” So if Nissan is going to eat the additional tariff cost for customers, it can’t be manufacturing cars that won’t sell well. And manuals reportedly only accounted for 5% of Versa sales in 2024.
As the manual Versa dies, it brings the five-speed manual transmission down with it. What was once a common drivetrain configuration is now a memory—when the last stick-shift Versa leaves a Nissan lot, there won’t be any new five-speed manual vehicles for sale in the United States. Only six-speed and a few seven-speed manuals will remain.
That isn’t much of a surprise, given that six-speeds have been the norm for years. Nissan killed the five-speed manual in the last-generation Frontier pickup in 2020, Volkswagen killed off the entry-level five-speed manual Golf after the Mk7 ended in 2021, and Mitsubishi dropped the Mirage’s five-speed in 2023. Still, this feels like a minor moment in car culture.
Killing the manual Versa won’t be a big sales hit, since barely any customers wanted it, but it will end Nissan’s ability to market a sub-$18,000 car.
It’s always a bummer to see a manual transmission die, since they’re are so few of them left. But I’m not sure how many people will care about the ancient five-speed Versa’s. It’s like when Lexus ended SC430 production, which was the last car with a cassette player. When a technology is so far past its sell-by date, does it really matter that it’s gone?
If you happen to buy one of the last stick-shift Versas, or if you’ve got one already, drop us a line because we’re curious to hear what they’re like to drive.
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Nico DeMattia is a staff writer at The Drive. He started writing about cars on his own blog to express his opinions when no one else would publish them back in 2015, and eventually turned it into a full-time career.