For decades, the vast majority of new pickup trucks sold in America came with standard manual transmissions, and this goes for both small mini-trucks and full-size pickups. While plenty of truck buyers would pay extra for the convenience of an automatic, stick shift trucks used to be very common, especially when it came to no-frills pickups purchased primarily for work duty. 

However, as with every other vehicle segment, manual transmission availability in pickups would decline sharply beginning in the mid-2000s. It’s now reached the point where there’s currently just one new manual-transmission pickup on the market. Yet while new pickup buyers have just one manual option, expanding your search to the used market does offer a few more manual truck candidates at relatively affordable prices.

As you’d expect, the newer the truck you’re shopping for, the rarer manual-equipped models will be. Below are five manual pickup options that should still be modern enough to serve as a daily driver. Of course, if you were to go back even further to the classic trucks of the ’80s and ’90s, you’ll find additional manual offerings, but for this selection we’ve limited our picks specifically to manual trucks from the 2010s and newer.

Toyota deserves big credit for keeping the manual option alive in its latest Tacoma pickup. Sure, the new Tacoma might not have the world’s best manual, but the fact that it’s offered at all is a big deal. But what about the people who don’t want to spend the approximately 45,000 dollars it takes to buy a new Tacoma with a manual? Well, that’s where a cheaper, used Tacoma comes in.

The two previous generations of Tacoma both had available manual transmissions, and are both are still relatively modern mid-sized pickups that can be had without breaking the bank. They’ll also be some of the most commonly found manual pickups on the used market today. We’re talking about trucks that were built between 2005 and 2023, so you can find likely candidates on everything from 20-year-old Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace offerings to low-mileage trucks that are just a few years old. 

While the current generation of Tacoma uses a new turbocharged four-cylinder engine, the majority of manual-equipped second and third-generation Tacomas will have Toyota’s older, but proven, naturally aspirated V6 engines, with a few base trucks having the 2.7-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder. Perhaps the biggest detriment to buying a used manual Tacoma is that these trucks are known for holding their value extremely well, so don’t expect to find many bargain basement deals — even on an older, high mileage truck you can expect to pay as much as $30,000 or more if it’s in good condition.

For better or worse, the current Nissan Frontier is a very old-school-feeling truck. One of the things that sets the Frontier apart from its mid-sized pickup competition is that it continues to use a naturally aspirated V6 engine, while everyone else has moved to turbocharged four-cylinders. Sadly, though, the Frontier’s traditional appeal does not expand to its transmission options, which are now automatic-only.

You can buy a Nissan Frontier with a manual gearbox, but you’ll have to go back several model years to find one; Nissan dropped the manual from the Frontier during the truck’s 2020 model year updates. That means if you want a stick-shift Frontier with a V6, it will come with Nissan’s older 4.0-liter engine and not the updated, more powerful 3.8-liter from the new trucks.

Nissan sold the second-generation Frontier for a long, long time, with the truck debuting back in 2005 and being sold all the way until 2021. This, of course, means there’s a wide range of Frontiers on the secondhand market that can be found for around $20,000 depending on age and condition. A five-speed manual could be had with the base 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, and that’s likely to be your cheapest option on the used market. A six-speed manual was available with the aforementioned 4.0-liter V6, and should cost a bit more. Either will be substantially cheaper than a new truck, though.

Let’s say you want a modern, full-sized, or heavy-duty pickup truck with a manual transmission. Unfortunately, your options there are going to be extremely limited. On mainstream half-ton pickups, stick shifts basically became extinct by the mid-2000s, with most heavy-duty manual options disappearing shortly after that — but there was one notable holdout in that heavy-duty truck segment. That would be the Ram 2500, which kept its available six-speed manual transmission through the 2018 model year.

In this case, the manual came mated to the venerable 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel engine. As you’d expect, these 2010s-era manual Ram trucks are vastly outnumbered by their automatic counterparts, but used car searches show a fair number of them on the market nationwide. Depending on specific mileage and options, you can expect to pay somewhere between the high $30,000s to mid $40,000s for one of the later examples of these six-speed Cummins trucks.

Is the price for these Ram diesel trucks affordable? Maybe not compared to some of the other, smaller manual trucks on this list — but prices are still far lower than what you’d pay for a brand-new heavy-duty diesel pickup, none of which offer the engagement and fun of a manual transmission. These trucks, with their torque-laden engines and tall shifters, are a cool throwback to the days when most heavy-duty pickups were utilitarian workhorses rather than plush cruisers.

If you’re looking for a modern Chevrolet or GMC pickup with a manual transmission, you’ll have to skip the full-size offerings; those trucks dropped their manuals way back in the early 2000s. You can, however, still find a manual gearbox in certain versions of the second-generation Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups, which had an available six-speed until the 2019 model year. Unlike the Toyota Tacoma of the same era, there was no V6-powered or 4×4 Colorado or Canyon with a manual transmission. The non-automatic option, was only offered on the two-wheel-drive, base versions of the truck with the standard four-cylinder engine. 

Still, there is something kind of endearing about a simple, base model work truck with a stick shift. GM cited a lack of demand when axing the manual from these trucks, and given the limited options they offered with the six-speed, it’s not surprising that manual second-gen Colorados and Canyons have always been quite rare.

A recent search through the CarMax nationwide inventory found just one single manual-equipped 2018 Colorado priced at $19,000 –compared to hundreds of automatic trucks. While it surely wouldn’t be a huge seller, we can’t help but think how fun it’d be to have a manual in the latest version of the rugged and highly capable Chevy Colorado ZR2.

The Toyota Tacoma is currently the only new pickup truck to offer a manual transmission, but up until very recently, there was one more manual pickup on the market — albeit a fairly unconventional one. That would be the Jeep Gladiator, which is, of course, a stretched version of the Jeep Wrangler 4×4 with an open bed.

Less of a traditional pickup and more of a Wrangler with added cargo capacity, the modern Gladiator debuted for the 2020 model year and formerly had a six-speed manual available with its naturally aspirated 3.6-liter V6 engine. The manual in the Gladiator didn’t always earn high marks from reviewers, but it nonetheless added a lot of personality to what was already a very unique pickup. As you’d expect, automatic Gladiators greatly outnumber manual ones on the used market, but these days you can easily find a decent stick-shift Gladiator in the mid-$20,000s.

The six-speed manual was dropped from the Gladiator’s lineup after 2024, but continues to be an option in the Jeep Wrangler as one of the two remaining manual SUV options on the new market. Recent industry rumors, however, suggest that manual transmission could possibly be returning to the Gladiator’s option sheet in the near future, which would double the number of new manual pickups available.