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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Radical Shifter Anarchy
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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Since the only two RHD cars I’ve driven (a Ford Focus in Ireland and a Hyundai i45 in Australia) were automatics with floor-mounted shifters, were column-mounted shifters to the left of the steering column?
I drove a Fiat Ducato van with a “five-on-the-tree” shifter throughout Italy, but it was LHD and having grown up with several three-on-the-tree pickups as a kid, it wasn’t that difficult.
I think shifting left-handed with a column-mounted manual shifter would have taken some time to master.
Yep, RHD column shifters were on the left of the steering wheel, and for automatic transmissions this was one of the rare cases where the direction of the shifting was acually mirrored (with P on the right):
https://www.streetmachine.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ford-xe-ute-dash-nw.jpg
Modern Mercedes shifters remain on the right.
So how would you classify the column mounted miniature gated shift lever for the preselector transmission on a Routemaster bus?
Personally I’d rather have electronic column shifters move like mechanical ones since it replicates a familiar and effective interface. Rolls-Royce used to use an electric column shifter for the TH359 in the Silver Shadow.
A column shifter is a mechanical lever shifter attached to the column where the mechanism moves with the attachment point of the steering column as the axis and does not return to center when in gear. In short, it holds down something to activate it and keep it activated. This means that drive by wire can still be a column shifter.
This does not count.
This is a tab drive selector.
You move the tab or stalk to the indent, it takes it as an input, it returns to center. It does not hold something down because there’s only a contact switch.
This is the one I fully agree with.
I think the judgement of what gets called a “column-mounted shifter” should not depend on any complex interaction between drivetrain type, control method and position in the vehicle. Just break it down.
To my mind, the controversy lies only in #2. It would be ridiculous to deny calling something a column shifter because there are electronics involved, while being fine with calling it a console shifter if that’s where it’s located.
I would like to see this butterfly with soup in its proboscis and arson in the forefront of its mind.
There was a dark 70s movie called Papillon. I don’t recall soup but arson might have been featured.
A column shifter is something where the motion of the shift is centered on the column. If the shifter is static and you’re just doing twisty motions, it’s column-mounted, but not a column shifter.
For that matter – if it’s an electronic device that returns to the same position after every input – and does not allow the driver to select an individual gear or range of gears while underway – That’s not a shifter.
That’s a drive selector.
A shifter allows you to select a specific gear or range of gears – and then also choose a different gear or range of gears while underway.
A manual transmission obviously has a shifter.
Your Grandpa’s old Lincoln that he could choose Drive 1, Drive 2 and Low – That’s a shifter.
An automatic/EV with a monostable stalk/cobra-head/folding lever/button/dial/twisty thing/noodle/touchscreen – that has a drive selector.
Then you have Tesla who has eliminated it? But rely on ultrasonic sensors to decide which direction you want to go? These days it is PRND especially with EVs.
Tesla isn’t a car company.
They’re a tech/AI company.
Or so we’re told.
So that thing you are talking about – it’s just a large data collector which happens to also haul you and your stuff around.
If you’re lucky.
That’s the only way any of this makes sense.
Maybe next they will innovate and invent the left column shifter, now that the turn signals are steering wheel buttons? Anyone with normal muscle memory will shift into forward trying to signal right, and reverse trying to signal left? That could make for some fun videos.
Do the electronic ones like those pictured at least have some kind of basic mechanical feel to them? A click or detent that says affirmatively “you have engaged the gear”?
My ioniq 5 does. I love it. Easy and out of the way.
The Mercedes drive selector definitely feels like its actuating when you select drive or reverse.
As for Neutral or Park – that’s not so certain.
In that case, just open the driver’s door when the car is stopped and it will automatically select Park.
In the end – I would prefer the simpler one that the Explorer has.
Because you know exactly where it is without looking at a readout on the driver’s display somewhere.
Ford rotary ones don’t have it. That’s the one I encounter most on rentals.
If it attached to the “column” then it counts.
Even if it is just a button connected via wire to the transmission. A lot of brands would do well to put it there instead of these rotary dials and tiny nubs of “shift knobs” taking up space on the center console.
The Ford Escape rotary thing is annoying as heck.
It puzzles me how people are willing to learn to operate a new phone or a new nav system, then go full Luddite by sliding behind the wheel of a different car. I could drive my smart smoothly and find that the shifter of the Maverick falls easily within reach. The farm truck with the odd pattern secondary transmission took some concentration for a bit, then muscle memory took over.
When the vehicle offers zero clues as to it’s operation – and you’re trying to load luggage, adjust seats and mirrors and make the thing proceed from the Hertz rental lot – You’d ask a question or two as well.
The shame is that the only hybrid Explorer in the states IS the Police Interceptor. Sure, it only saves 3-4 MPG, but that’s actually huge in a car that averages 20-22 MPG…
And idles CONSTANTLY
“They’re all physically linked to their respective gearboxes…” Do you know if the Explorer column shifter uses a cable? I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be fly-by-wire.
Does Lincoln still offer the in-dash push button shifter setup? I always liked that it’s a heritage touch but one that actually works only now due to our modern tech.
Yes. That said, it’s no longer a vertical column of buttons on the left side of the center stack. On the current models, it’s a horizontal row of buttons lower in the center stack.
Ah wonderful. Lincoln’s really getting it mostly right these days…just wish there were still a sedan around; an aspirational Continental would be awesome.
Where does the 2006-2010 Dodge Charger police interceptor fall here?
It’s got a cable-connected column shifter that goes clunk from gear to gear, but if you look closer it doesn’t actually attach to the column. It’s coming out of the dashboard right next to the column. It always weirded me out. It’s like a 2CV shifter. The motion is what you’re used to but it’s sticking in the wrong position.
It was probably cheaper to change the portion of the dashboard and trim to accommodate the shifter than it was to do a different steering column and shroud.
The gen-2 Honda CR-V had something similar, a shifter masquerading as a column shifter, but that was actually mounted to the dashboard.
I’m pretty sure Dodge grabbed the guts of the cable-operated floor shifter (or dash-mounted one from the Grand Caravan) and just slapped an add-on linkage on the end of the stubby lever to make it push or pull the cable like the linear pattern of the regular shifters. The transmission doesn’t care, as long as the cable moves the right way. But it’s definitely an odd setup that was pretty much slapped on as an afterthought.
Also I used to own a 1987 Monte Carlo SS. Chevy made a floor shifter for that car that left the column shifter mechanism intact. When you shift the floor shifter, you see part of the column rotate… so technically…
How interesting. I’m sure that also had something do with cost. Having one big mechanism that could be controlled either way probably cut down on the number of component variances between the column-shift and floor-shift cars.
It’s not out of the column so it’s not a column shifter. It’s a fraud.
Mercedes-Benz gets credit for the modern column shifter, and I love the one in my ’15 S 550 Coupe. It frees up a lot of space that would otherwise be dedicated to a shifter.
That said, Rolls-Royce was probably the first to really do an electronic column shifter. Going back to the seventies, they had an electronic shifter that operated traditionally–that is, each gear was a static position on the shifter–but it sent commands to the transmission, rather than it being connected to a physical cable. This way, the shifter action could be effortless and pinky-light. That setup persisted through the last of the Crewe cars, which were all the ones before BMW relaunched the brand in 2003.
BMW actually did the first monostable column shifter, as far as I can tell, on the E65 7 Series. On that one, you tapped up on the stalk for reverse, down for drive, and the P button on the end for park. In all instances, the stalk would return to center. Pushing the P button while the stalk was centered would put the car in neutral. The 2003 Rolls-Royce Phantom got a variant of this setup. And while BMW moved away from column shifters (apart from the odd model, such as David’s i3), Rolls-Royce has retained this setup to this day.
Mercedes-Benz did not get around to putting a monostable column shifter on one of its cars until 2006, with the then-new W164 M Class. And even after that, the application was spotty, with sportier or cheaper models still having console shifters. Of course, Tesla borrowed the Mercedes-Benz shifter and the rest of the Mercedes-Benz steering column for its first-run Model S and X.
Interestingly, GM has begun doing a monostable column shifter on its new cars that’s similar to the Mercedes-Benz one. The new ’25 full-size SUVs have it, as do the full-size crossovers and most of the EVs.
I’m just reminded of the ridiculous and over-engineered folding monstrosity Ford put in the center consoles of their trucks instead of just installing a column shifter.
That may be the worst implementation of a “traditional” shifter in existence (I’m excluding the button/switch/stalk combo abominations). Not only is it unnecessarily large, the whole folding mechanism takes up even more space in the center console because they have to leave room for when it goes limp. I cannot comprehend what they were thinking.
Can I assume that the column-mounted shifter in the Police Interceptor is still digital but with an analog representation? I’d be surprised if there were actual cables in the column performing the gear selection. If that’s the case, what’s the point? Why the need for a special shifter?
I’m almost positive it is. The Ford/GM 10AT probably doesn’t even have a provision for a traditional cable-actuated shifter, and likely only accommodates electronic control mechanisms. Plus, Ford making the column shifter mechanical would necessitate a whole bunch of different parts, rather than new ones.
The need for the special shifter is that police interceptors often leave the console open for duty-specific upfits and retrofits. For instance, the computer terminal that the LEO uses is often mounted right where a console shifter would be.
Well, that answers my next question. I wasn’t aware the standard Explorer had a console-mounted shifter.
The new round of GM vehicles have an electronic column shifter, the problem is that the shifter itself feels cheap and should be something solid and heavy. Only the Cadillac version feels a little better but that’s about it.
To your point, the only GM car with the new column shifter I’ve driven is the Lyriq, and it felt just fine there. I’ll have to drive a Blazer EV or Acadia, and see how much worse it is.
My 66 Dodge A100 van has a column mounted three-speed manual. I like it since I don’t have to move my hand too far off the wheel to swap that cog. I do have to swap my drink to my left hand though.
I was just thinking about column shift manuals recently. I drove one occasionally back in the 70’s, but I haven’t seen one for a while.
When did column shift manuals finally die out? I could imagine finding an old Three-in-the-tree sedan of some sort to go alongside my 1947 foot clutch, hand shift Harley!
When I was a young kid (late-90s to mid-00s), my dad’s second car was a 1973 C10 Custom with a three-on-the-tree manual. It briefly became his daily driver circa 2001 when he had his main car (a 1964 Impala Coupe) restored and painted, which took months. As far as I know, only my dad and my maternal grandmother (who was part of our household at the time) knew how to drive it.
In his younger days, my dad used to drive dune scooters. Back then it was an old Studebaker with the top cut off. It had a three-on-the-tree, but they would flip it around so it was upside down and on the left side. They did that so the customer sitting in the passenger seat couldn’t reach over and yank it out of gear when they were bombing down the side of a steep sand dune.
I fear I would end up shifting into reverse every time I blindly tried to speed up my wipers.
So where do we stand on the Citroen Grand C4 SpaceTourer’s shifter? It’s like a traditional column shifter on the sense that it seems to move through the PRND range sequentially and physically (but electronically of course) but actually sticks out of the top of the dashboard above and to the right of the steering wheel sort of where the chunky lever in the Explorer might fall to hand on its highest position. Is that a column shift? I wish I could find a picture.
I appreciate this is fairly niche and Euro centric BTW.
Considering that where it’s mounted is technically part of the steering column, yes, I’d say it counts as a column shifter. It’s just mounted on top of the column, rather than on the side of it. Citroën sure is weird. I love it.
I’m pretty sure there are cars out there where pulling both flappy paddles will put the car in neutral, so that definitely adds to the grey area surrounding paddles being shifters because it would give you almost as much control as a column mounted manual (don’t think you can get into reverse with paddles).
My Ranger EV has a the OG column mounted shifted and is one of the many low tech reasons I love it. Hybrids/EVs can have analog gauges and controls and work just fine. And the column is a great place for the shifter, the buttons and dials they throw on the middle console are just different for different’s sake and it’s super annoying.
“Hey everyone knows how to use a regular automatic shifter, what if we make it look completely foreign to that? Or remove it entirely and put it in the touchscreen?”
I love column mounted shifters. My truck and my full-size Bronco had them and that clunk was always satisfying. They also free up room elsewhere but add linkage. Now that they are almost all electric shifters now, I will go with if it’s a PRNDL on the column its column shift. Flappy paddles are not column shift because you usually have to select drive, reverse somewhere else.
I agree with this take. To me, it’s the only sensible way to categorize these. There’s no need for an additional category because it’s column-mounted but works differently than we’re used to. And calling paddle shifters column-mounted shifters is just ignoring the primary (PRNDL) shifting method in order to sow chaos and make some point about categorization.
Yeah, paddle shifters are their own thing, and do not count. And even they have dichotomies, because you have paddles that are mounted on the fronts of the spokes, paddles that are mounted on the backs of the spokes, paddles that are mounted on the column and remain in place as you turn the wheel…and a few that aren’t paddles at all, but rather buttons on the steering wheel (see: E65 BMW 7 Series).
Can we get that and a middle jump seat in the civilian explorer please? specifically the 96-2007 taurus middle seat with the flip forward console/cupholder….