It will be better. Grabbing a gear fast and smoothly in a sand wash or while you've got several other inputs for your hands and eyes, especially steering, the mental stimulus is just easier to deal with. The fat shift will keep momentum better. Yea sure, you can run a manual, but race teams and enthusiasts alike run autos in the desert for a reason. Gate shifters on TTs and KoH rigs are common, that's why selecting a gear has become normal for off road oriented AT vehicles. I speak from experience: pushing a button for a gear coming out of a high speed, off camber 4 wheel drift in a turn then getting right into a jump or similar obstacle while avoiding that one tree and rock on the inside of the corner is easier without trying to balance your foot on the 3rd pedal searching for a gear while the trail is bashing you around, then saying screw it and bogging out of the turn in a gear that's too high and nose diving. That's just too much input to deal with. Just the jostling about in the truck is enough to make you miss the shifts a little too often, let alone all that added stimuli. Unless it's short throw and tidy like a WRC car, but those roads tend to be groomed better than desert trails. Even then just give me paddle shifters or a button on the shift lever.I agree that configuration would be best for off-roading/rock-crawling. The 2.7 automatic might be better for desert running.
But whatevs, to each their own. Maybe Ford will release a V10 16L TT EcoBoost with a hybrid manual/auto transmission and helicopter rotors on the Warthog for MY21. That's hopefully why the B&P is delayed. ?
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