New Bronco will have manual option

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Davidinseattle

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Looks like Ford is reversing course and adding a manual transmission to the Bronco with late 2021 availability. Wonder what the take rate will be on that since most likely won't see off road.

That said, nice to see a manufacturer listening to their enthusiasts.
 

PaulLR3

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I agree, "save the manuals". I have owned about 20 vehicles with a manual, mostly Accords and A4's when I was a sales rep and drove about 40K miles per year. Just more fun to drive.

However, driving a manual transmission in difficult off road conditions (rock crawling) is a whole new challenge. I had one A4 with 150K miles on the original clutch but I was afraid of destroying the clutch in my friend's Wrangler after one hour off road. Then again the shift action and clutch engagement in a Wrangler isn't quite Audi or Honda smooth.
 

avslash

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I bought a manual Wrangler for the sole purpose of passing each of my teen daughters through it as their first vehicle. They are indeed dying, but learn it to where it is second nature and you can drive anything from a tractor to a motorcycle.

I had to hook up a trailer and drive 300 miles to get one with a manual though.
 

Davidinseattle

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I agree, "save the manuals". I have owned about 20 vehicles with a manual, mostly Accords and A4's when I was a sales rep and drove about 40K miles per year. Just more fun to drive.

However, driving a manual transmission in difficult off road conditions (rock crawling) is a whole new challenge. I had one A4 with 150K miles on the original clutch but I was afraid of destroying the clutch in my friend's Wrangler after one hour off road. Then again the shift action and clutch engagement in a Wrangler isn't quite Audi or Honda smooth.


Lots of people want the manual. It gives you crawler gear. Back when I was a kid, we called it granny gear. With 4:10s in a 4x4 in granny gear, you'd putt along at about a 1/100th of a mile an hour with your foot off the gas (not sure of actual speed but it was slow). I can remember picking asparagus as a summer job when i was a kid and the field owner would just leave the truck in gear and jump out while the truck continued slowly down the row. Then he'd jog up to catch it.

I learned to drive a stick with that truck as did every other kid that worked a summer job there. When someone would tell Larry they didn't know how to drive a stick, he'd say, "that's not my problem, get in their and figure it out...!". That old ford must have taught hundreds of kids how to drive a stick and was none the worse for the wear.
 

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