Home » What Even Is A Column-Mounted Shifter Anymore?

What Even Is A Column-Mounted Shifter Anymore?

Column Shifter Ts
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For those used to the old automotive paradigms, we’re living in odd times. Crossovers are the new cars, hybrids are the new normal, and infotainment has gone from loathed to mandatory. At the same time, all manner of new technologies have come into play, so we need to answer a pressing question: What counts as a column-mounted shifter these days?

It all started with a text message, and then people had opinions. See, Ford product communications director Mike Levine messaged Jason about the updated Ford Police Interceptor Utility, which is basically an Explorer you don’t want to find yourself riding in.

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It now has a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, a special Pursuit Mode for chasing civilians, and up to 400 horsepower with the optional three-liter turbocharged V6. However, none of those tidbits of information are what sparked controversy within our office — instead, it’s a claim that the hybrid model is the only hybrid in American with a column shifter.

Screenshot 2024 08 07 At 12.48.09 pm shifter

Never one to resist sliding in with a technicality, I gave credit where credit’s due to electronic shifters, since they appear to more-or-less be the new normal in a whole heap of cars.

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Screenshot 2024 08 07 At 12.48.29 pm

While Matt doesn’t think of electronic column-mounted shifters as column-mounted shifters, he seems somewhat dispassionate on this issue, which is actually a good stance to take. Life’s short. Looking at a butterfly, eating soup, trying not to commit arson, just about anything’s a better use of your time than dying on some arbitrary, inconsequential hill.

Screenshot 2024 08 07 At 12.48.53 pm

Well, we know where Pete stands. So, what even counts as a column-mounted shifter? I’ve done a bit of soul-searching, and I reckon you can divide it up into three categories. Here they are.

Purism

2025 Ford Police Interceptor Utility shifter

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If you’re a column-shifter purist, your buck probably stops here. Any column-shift manual transmission falls in this category, along with old-school automatic transmission column shifters that clunk into gear with the imperiousness of dropping a cast iron bathtub off a fire escape. They’re all physically linked to their respective gearboxes, be it through rods or cables, and were basically the American standard for decades, partly because they left room for a simple bench front seat.

Digitalism

Mercedes-Benz e-shifter

Under digitalism, we recognize that modern technology has rendered the latest crop of column shifters to be electronic. They still cycle through a full range of gears, but you no longer need to yoink on them like you’re in a ’70s cop show chase scene to go from park to drive because you’re really just telling a computer what you want it to do.

2024 Hyundai Kona N-Line shifter

The most textbook modern example is the Mercedes-Benz column-mounted e-shifter, where you pull down to engage drive, push up to engage reverse, and tap a button on the end to engage park. Hyundai (pictured above), Volkswagen, and several other automakers have also embraced variations on electronic column shifters, so expect these to gain popularity as people crave space in center consoles to charge their damn phones.

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Radical Shifter Anarchy

2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia Tributo Italiano Special Series (european Spec)

Under radical shifter anarchy, any item attached to a steering column that affects gear selection in any way is considered a column shifter. You can probably guess where this is going. That’s right, by the standards of radical shifter anarchy, column-mounted paddles are column-mounted shifters, so rides like the Alfa Romeo Giulia, Maserati Quattroporte V, and, um, Mitsubishi Lancer fall into this category. Is it valid? That depends entirely on how much of a shit-disturber you want to be.

So there we are, three levels of column-mounted shifters. While a handful of people will fall into the first camp, and a few people into light trolling for fun and sport will fall into the third camp, electronic column-mounted shifters have been around long enough that some of us recognize them as valid. In which case, the Mercedes-Benz GLE 450e 4MATIC and S580e 4MATIC are hybrid vehicles with column shifters too. However, who’s to say purism is necessarily a bad thing? For the diehards, the Ford Police Interceptor Utility is indeed the only hybrid with a traditional column-mounted shifter, so it’s really all a matter of perspective.

(Photo credits: Ford, Alfa Romeo, Doug DeMuro)

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Anonymous Person
Anonymous Person
2 months ago

I was working with a co-worker in Texas a couple of years ago and our rental vehicle was a Ram pickup with the V6 and one of those dial shifters. Whenever my co-worker would drive, he’d get in, put on his seat belt, start the truck, apply the brake and try to put it in gear… And the wipers would start moving. Even after a week of driving this truck he would do this. And then he’d get mad that I was laughing at him.

To me, that’s the best argument for putting pickup truck shifters back on the column.

Last edited 2 months ago by Anonymous Person
Ben
Ben
2 months ago

Keeping it in the family, is it possible to get the PowerBoost with a column shifter? That’s the only other possible place I could see a column shifter being used on a hybrid.

Ffoc01
Ffoc01
2 months ago
Reply to  Ben

I’ll go one step further. The F150 (powerboost or gas) column shifter is a verision of the completely digital shift lever found on most F150’s, made famous for its “Fold Down” mode.

So, even though it functions almost exactly the same as the standard, decades old column shift, there is ZERO mechanical connection to the drivetrain. Rendering it NOT a column shift by the author’s definition.

J Money
J Money
2 months ago

Transmission selectors in general and column shifters in particular are one of those weird car things that raise my BP.

PRNDL was mandated by Federal law many years ago to at least make the experience consistent between vehicles in the hopes of reducing the number of people accidentally run over. Yet somehow now, carmakers are again allowed to get cute and make their selectors sort of look like PRNDL but in reality, you have to, like, push a button to put it in Park right from Drive or some other such nonsense. This is the exact opposite of the point of PRNDL.

Sorry, I need to take a few breaths here.

Also, what does this save us? Does this save time? Save space? It definitely doesn’t do the latter when automakers continue to put whatever selector they have right in the center area. Which makes me just long for the column shifter I had on my 2010 Silverado.

I even saw that the Silverado’s has been moved down to the center console below the center stack and I died a little inside.

Okay, I need to go lie down.

Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
2 months ago

The ironic part is that technically, anything that is part of the 2 words that describe it: COLUMN MOUNTED
are COLUMN MOUNTED. Think about it, that’s exactly what those 2 words mean! It’s the same thing. I actually have no clue why I’m even saying this since I’m 100% purist, anything that’s not a stick or column auto/column stick is trash, and EV junk & their stupid fucking “shifters” are completely asinine/absurd. I guess it’s just the irony that:
Column mounted=Column mounted
It reminds me of the best Simpsons episode ever: Mono=1 Rail=Rail
Anyway, all this electronic junk, a million screens, and EV’s=trash
GASOLINE FOREVER!

Gubbin
Gubbin
2 months ago

That’s just good user interface design. It’s a fleet vehicle and you want the driver to just slide into the seat and find everything the way they expect.

As for “electronic column shift” any Ford F-truck from the mid-90s on with the E4OD is running column shift with a computer-controlled transmission so *shrug*.

Spectre6000
Spectre6000
2 months ago

I’m about to buy a sported out 2011 E550. It has both the electronic column shifter AND the flappy paddles. Is there any special consideration for doubly column shifted?

Urban Runabout
Urban Runabout
2 months ago
Reply to  Spectre6000

Oh, you must mean the sedan.
Because the coupe and convertible had console-mounted drive selectors through 2013.

Spectre6000
Spectre6000
2 months ago
Reply to  Urban Runabout

Confirmed.

Cranberry
Cranberry
2 months ago

I sometimes miss my Sienna’s column shifter, the sensation of just throwing it into park and the open space I could walk through without a center console. (seat-mounted cup holder, netting with another glovebox beneath the radio instead)

But I also don’t miss occasionally overshooting the gear I wanted.

Crimedog
Crimedog
2 months ago
Reply to  Cranberry

I drive both a ’12 Nissan Pathfinder (console shifter) and a ’21 Nissan Titan. While I switch back and forth pretty regularly during the week and on a whim, I only find myself ‘air missing’ the column shifter that isn’t in my Pathfinder. I never ‘air miss’ the console shifter that isn’t in my Titan.

I guess I am predisposed towards the column shifter.

This was all a better story in my head.

EXP_Scarred
EXP_Scarred
2 months ago
Reply to  Crimedog

No worries. I used to do the same going from my pickup to my wife’s SUV. And I remember it the same way, I’d “phantom grab” for a column shifter in the SUV, but never the other way around. Most likely because the pickup was my DD.

Chris Jackson
Chris Jackson
2 months ago
Reply to  Cranberry

Which generation Sienna do you have? We used to have an ’07, and now have a ’13, and neither are what I would consider ‘column’ mounted. They were right up on the dash, which was good and perfectly useable. Easy reach, not blocking the cupholders, and understandable. The perfect shifter.

Cranberry
Cranberry
2 months ago
Reply to  Chris Jackson

It was the very first year of the first generation, 1998! My SO’s uncle had an ‘09 model as well so I got to try that out which works fine as well.

Chris Jackson
Chris Jackson
2 months ago
Reply to  Cranberry

Nice! The old school one.

MY LEG!
MY LEG!
2 months ago

Column shifters make me feel like I’m driving a fleet vehicle. No thank you.

Ricardo Mercio
Ricardo Mercio
2 months ago
Reply to  MY LEG!

The one in our CR-V makes me feel like I’m driving a tiny little truck. It’s kind of adorable.

TDI in PNW
TDI in PNW
2 months ago

I don’t like the old school column shifters and the awkward way they feel. I still use them daily in work vehicles and I really can’t stand them at all. Also not a fan of the Mercedes fleet with those odd column shifters in the same spot. I prefer the gear selector to be where the stick would have been.

Paddle shifters are not column shifters and are possibly more useless and less used than the recently discussed auto-parking tech.

Thomas Metcalf
Thomas Metcalf
2 months ago
Reply to  TDI in PNW

I like old school column shifters on a truck. Wasting center console space on an electronic shift lever is so dumb. Even the Ram Dial shift is better than a console shift automatic.

AlterId
AlterId
2 months ago

As I write this there have been 57 comments made here over the past nine hours, but they leave me disappointed. Yes, there have been a number of excellent points made in the discussion, which certainly seems to miss the point of Internet comment sections, but I’ve resigned myself to expecting that here. Instead, there’s this description of the Police Interceptor:

…which is basically an Explorer you don’t want to find yourself riding in.

No one addressed this statement. At. All. My eyes have rolled under the dining room table and are still spinning away. It would have been so very easy and appealed to so many automotive stereotypes, prejudices and clichés. Truly I am sadden… ah, but I must endeavor to let this pass quietly, unlike a fast-food meal that has lingered a bit too long under the summer sun in the backseat of a locked car before being remembered and consumed.

Also: Where would the steering wheel-hub mounted pushbutton gear selector from the 1958 Edsel fall? It’s not column-mounted, of course, and it was electronic, so no direct connection to the gearbox. There was the Vulcan Electric Gear Shift, which was a preselector (like the Bendix vacuum-powered preselectors with a stalk-mounted gate from the ’30s, another one to consider) with buttons on the hub or a column-mounted box that executed the shift with solenoids when the driver pressed the clutch, or the Cutler-Hammer Magnetic Gear Shift, which actually did the shift when the buttons on the column-mounted box were pressed.

Nicholas Bianski
Nicholas Bianski
2 months ago
Reply to  AlterId

I can confirm it’s an Explorer you don’t want to find yourself in, though my girlfriend and I only found ourselves in one because the officer who responded to the accident that totaled my Civic was kind enough to take us to a hotel. There is far less space on the insanely hard and uncomfortable back seat than you might expect, even for a police vehicle.

AlterId
AlterId
2 months ago

It’s more that all Explorers, at least of this generation (maybe the coming facelift will help things), are Explorers you don’t want to find yourself riding in.

People have become so earnest lately. I don’t know how to act anymore.

Last edited 2 months ago by AlterId
Nicholas Bianski
Nicholas Bianski
2 months ago
Reply to  AlterId

That was the only time in my 35 years so far that I’ve been in one. Checks out.

Citrus
Citrus
2 months ago
Reply to  AlterId

Nah but if you’re in a regular Explorer you might be going somewhere cool like a theme park or nice restaurant.

If you’re in a cop Explorer something has just gone very wrong.

Thomas Metcalf
Thomas Metcalf
2 months ago

I rode in the back of a cop car once. I was doing a volunteer thing and the cop took us out to pizza hut afterwards. As it was over 20 years ago, it was a Crown Vic. The best police car.

Spectre6000
Spectre6000
2 months ago
Reply to  Thomas Metcalf

My sole ride in the back of a cop car was outside of Kingman, Arizona. The ’57 Karmann Ghia I was driving across country broke down, and I needed a ride back to town to get a part. Unfortunately, I broke down near a prison in a no hitchhiker zone. Fortunately, it wasn’t held against me.

Last edited 2 months ago by Spectre6000
Thomas Metcalf
Thomas Metcalf
2 months ago
Reply to  Spectre6000

Hahaha. Imagine if he took you right back to the jail.

Totally not a robot
Totally not a robot
2 months ago

I bet Ford dug through the parts bin for that column shifter because their Explorer rotary shifter is pure garbage. I can imagine PDs refusing to order anything with that shifter and Ford would do anything to hold onto those sweet sweet government orders.

Kyree
Kyree
2 months ago

It’s because the console usually needs to be available on LEO vehicles for upfits. For example, the computer unit is often mounted there.

Totally not a robot
Totally not a robot
2 months ago
Reply to  Kyree

I was having a nice rant, and then you have to go injecting logic and reasoning into this whole thing.

Ppnw
Ppnw
2 months ago

A column shifter is something no car should be supplied with. That’s what it is.

VanGuy
VanGuy
2 months ago

Honestly, while I will concede from personal experience that the “purism” method is satisfying, I’d be happy enough to see it die.

If it weren’t for the fact I grew up with a van in my family and eventually my own, I don’t think they’d be “intuitive” to use, even as automatics.

You see the gear indicator…you see a stick with no label on it but the “overdrive” button.

If you put a gun to my head and told me to make it move, I’d probably figure it out eventually (“oh, depress the brake, pull the stick toward me and then pull it up or down”) but I think it’s a lot less intuitive than the Prius design, push-button, or dials.

We should be looking to make gear-shifting both intuitive to use, and also occupy minimal space on the dash.

To that extent, I think “duplicating” the “pure” column shift experience is pointless and needless.

Captain Muppet
Captain Muppet
2 months ago
Reply to  VanGuy

I’m from the UK, where autos are niche and traditional column shifts don’t exist. My first and only experience of a column shift was a rented 2007 Impala, and I sat in that for a good long time before I worked out that the budget toilet brush handle behind the wheel wasn’t just there to make you finally understand the phrase “cheap hard plastics”.

VanGuy
VanGuy
2 months ago
Reply to  Captain Muppet

Exactly! They’re easy to use once you know, but trying to add iconography to explain that easily would be both difficult and also insulting to one’s intelligence after you did learn.

Also see: I would hate to buy a Chevy Express van circa 2000 because all of them have a bit thing below the speedometer that says:
“APPLY BRAKE TO SHIFT FROM PARK” as if I know of any autos where that isn’t the case.

Kyree
Kyree
2 months ago
Reply to  Captain Muppet

Oof, I hate that a lot of foreigners’ first taste of an American vehicle was a W-body Impala. I promise you, all our cars don’t suck that much.

Captain Muppet
Captain Muppet
2 months ago
Reply to  Kyree

It’s OK, after a month with that Impala I came back for a three week road trip in a 2012 Mustang.

Drive By Commenter
Drive By Commenter
2 months ago

Tesla Model 3 and Y, both pre-facelift, have column shifters. They even go up for R and down for D. Definitely in the “electronic” category yet still a column shifter with shifting a lever required to make the car move.

RentalCarGuy
RentalCarGuy
2 months ago

Didn’t those use the Mercedes steering column? At least the S originally did.

Drive By Commenter
Drive By Commenter
2 months ago
Reply to  RentalCarGuy

I believe the original S did. Not sure about the later vehicles.

Kyree
Kyree
2 months ago
Reply to  RentalCarGuy

The Model S and X did, prior to their revamp.

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