Andy recently spent a week in a $40,000 Ford Maverickand while he loves the truck, there is one thing he can’t get over — the shift knob. it’s not the end of the world, but he finds it incredibly annoying when trying to make a three-point turn. personally, i agree with him. A rotary shifter is an inherently flawed design because it is not a column shifter, and column shifters are objectively the best. In fact, every automatic transmission in every car should have a column shifter.
Manuals are out of this argument, of course, because manuals are great, and I’m not sure how a six-speed setup on the stick would work in practice. I can’t imagine it would be much of an improvement in a performance car, but I could be wrong. However, if we’re talking about cars that don’t have manuals, I know for a fact that I’m not wrong, because a column shifter is the ideal gearshift.
Until recently, most automatic transmissions were physically connected to the gearshift lever, so it made sense to put a big shifter right in the middle. Except, you know what’s more satisfying than dropping a 1996 Toyota Camry into drive? Doing exactly that in a Chevrolet Suburban. Why? Because of that awesome column shifter.
Now that computers control everything, automakers are free to come up with creative new ways for drivers to put their cars into gear, and unfortunately, none of them have come up with an idea that surpasses the column shifter. Once your hands are on the wheel, the gearshift right there. It’s easy, convenient, and far superior to any other alternative.
Basically, it’s time for everyone to give up and copy Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes isn’t the only automaker to use a column shifter, but it’s still a superior experience to what you get from Hyundai. I’ve had a Mercedes-Benz E 450 for a week now, and I’m telling you, driving it is a dream. I mean, it’s a $90,000 luxury sedan when you factor in all the options, so it’s better than a dream, but I’m not kidding when I say that part of the reason I like it so much is because Mercedes has the best shifter in the business.
You want a three-point turn on the road? You barely even have to think about it. It also makes me wonder why more automakers don’t take the same approach. Is it a cost issue? It seems unlikely, but I’ve been wrong before. But I’m not a product planner. The real pros can figure out the money side of things. I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter because what Mercedes has done is so much better than any alternative I’ve seen.
But what about performance cars? Do I really expect you to use a tiny column shifter to put your big, macho Mustang GT into gear? Yes, I do. Take your new column-shifted Mustang GT for a spin around a three-stop circuit, and you’ll agree I’m right. It’s not that a column shifter means you can’t use the paddles to shift manually. Ultimately, it’s just a better, cleaner design, and it’s time the rest of the industry recognized that.
