The Autopian posted an article about the Tacoma's shifter and how the author is tired of the leather cladded shifters and would prefer the older style accordion ones.
Was it just last week that we all had Taco-mania? When the new 2024 Toyota Tacoma came out? Maybe two weeks ago? I think I was so flabbergasted by the wildly complicated, shock-absorber-enhanced seats that I forgot to talk to you about something else that caught my attention: the shifter. The...
www.theautopian.com
Long shift lever, nice rubber accordion’d boot (which I actually prefer to these scrotal leather ones everyone uses now) and that shifter shaft is just out there, loud and proud, and looking fine. The Tacoma has one, too, under that leather tent there, of course, it’s just all hidden:
I’m not the only one to notice this;
over at The Drive they found the shifter to be awkward and weird looking, so they asked a Toyota engineer, which was a smart idea. Here’s what they were told:
“We had to change, of course, the bell housing and so the mechanical attachment to where that goes to the transmission is a little bit longer. We have just a little bit longer throw, so, therefore, we had a little bit longer shift lever and the boot is just there to match that.”
Really, all that means is that it’s a long shift lever, which we all knew. But it doesn’t explain
why the whole damn lever has to be covered with the boot!
Why do we need the boot to go all the way up to the “neck” of the shifter? It looks weirder like this! It looks like the Sorting Hat from the
Harry Potter series, stuck there in between the seats, ready to tell you you’re a Slymeron or Ravenclams or whatever:
When I look at it, what I actually see is something strangely ecclesiastical, like the shifter is a medieval Jesuit monk or something like that:
Want to shift from third to fourth? Just grab Brother Theodore there by the head and drag him down. Easy!
When did this happen, exactly? Does this image make anyone feel uncomfortable, really?:
I’m just going to come out and say it: this total-boot/hide-the-stick business is not healthy. The strange, conical results of the shaft-modesty boots are bulky and clumsy things, and provide no real benefit to anyone. Let your shifter be a shifter. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Free the shaft! Free your mind! It’s called a stick shift, dammit, not a leathern-gown shift! Enough is enough! To the streets!
