THE 2024 CENTERFORCE ADVENTURE RUN
Tread|November/December 2024
Like buffalo, manual transmissions once roamed in great numbers across this beautiful land.
KAHN MEDIA
THE 2024 CENTERFORCE ADVENTURE RUN

Preferred for their simplicity and ruggedness, they were found in everything from one-ton work trucks to Jeeps to sports cars. With less heat generation and complexity to deal with, manual transmissions were often the choice of off-road adventurers exploring the wilds of Moab, the Colorado high passes, and the Sierras in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. As a bonus, their lower first gears made them better for technical trails, and they were usually cheaper, too.

Three-pedalers are sadly now a dying breed. Currently, only 36 vehicles are available in the United States with a manual transmission. Of those 36, the vast majority are sports cars, and only four really matter: the Ford Bronco, Toyota Tacoma, Jeep Gladiator and Wrangler. Every year, that list gets shorter as more people forget the joy of manually rowing through gears and the feel of a clutch pedal under their left foot. Still, a select group of individualists buck that trend and prefer manual transmissions over automatic slush boxes.

This story is from the November/December 2024 edition of Tread.

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This story is from the November/December 2024 edition of Tread.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.