[VIERsr]

M cars still have manual transmissions, no drama.
But I think the transmission topic deserves deeper considerations, manual gearboxes make sense when the rest of the car follows the same philosophy, on the wild and analogue 1M the manual gearbox would have been the only viable choice (as it was), an automatic gearbox wouldn't have made sense, when I drove the modern and heavy M3 G80 (both manual and auto) however I found no reasonable reasons to choose the manual gearbox due to the general "digital" feedback of the driving experience, the manual gearbox is simply not up to date with the rest of the car and I found it only a (very reasonable) romantic choice of a few die-hard purist enthusiasts.
But although it is still good that Bmw offers it for an M-car (as does Porsche), I don't really see a match for the M240i's philosophy.
Other sporty but not hardcore cars have been offered with manual transmissions (e.g. Jaguar F Type or Aston Martin V8 Vantage), and the market has rejected them severely for the same reasons.