The clutch pedal has been a rite of passage for drivers since the earliest days of the manual gearbox — but Saab once decided it was a problem worth solving. Long before dual-clutch transmissions became a fixture on everything from hot hatches to supercars, the Swedish brand quietly fitted its 900 with a system called Sensonic: a true manual gearbox with no clutch pedal whatsoever. It was neither a conventional automatic nor a modern semi-automatic, but something altogether more unusual — a clutch-by-wire manual that handed gear selection to the driver while automating the one part most people find tedious. In an era when automotive technology was still finding its footing, Sensonic was genuinely audacious. It was also, depending on the day, genuinely maddening.
