Is Jeep Shifting Gears? Rumors Fly Over Automatic-Only Wrangler

There’s been plenty of digital ink spilled over the forthcoming JL Wrangler, due out in 2018. Jeep is a huge cash cow for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, so the pressure is on to design a Wrangler which appeals to the general public and placates the hordes of rabid Jeep fans — who are known to gather torches and pitchforks at the mere suggestion of even the slightest design change.

A diesel option has been widely speculated, along with the chance of a turbocharged four-cylinder powerplant, both hooked to eight-speed automatics. Now, Andrew Collins over at the Truck Yeah arm of Jalopnik speculates the new JL could be offered solely as an automatic.

The automatic-only option was one of several possible scenarios put before the buying public at the 2016 Overland Expo. FCA representatives were clearly gathering consumer feedback before making a decision, one way or the other.

It’s an interesting notion, as more than a few offroaders consider an automatic to be the better choice for trail busting, and people who buy Wranglers with no offroad intent gravitate towards the automatic anyway. Take rate of the manual reportedly hovers between 10 and 20 percent, making it only slightly more popular than broccoli flavored ice cream at a kindergarten birthday.

At what stage does FCA stop offering an option simply for the sake of tradition?

Case in point: the Wrangler’s signature fold down windshield. With each successive iteration, the act of flipping the windshield down has become prohibitively more difficult, to the point where it’s now easier to drop the top on a Citroen Pluriel than it is to have a bugs-in-yer-teeth Wrangler experience. It begs the question whether FCA will bother engineering a drop windshield into the new JL when it will only be used by 0.0001 percent of Wrangler owners, history be damned.

It’s not a stretch to think FCA’s engineers are giving similar considerations to the Wrangler’s stick shift.

Having driven several examples, I enjoy a manual transmission Wrangler, even if its shifter does feel like a Louisville Slugger with only the most tenuous of attachments to anything inside a gearbox. Our Managing Editor feels differently, calling it “garbage,” “undriveable,” and stating that the Wrangler is one of the very few vehicles where a manual option makes no sense.

He may have a point. After all, we live on a planet where the entire Ferrari catalog is unavailable with three pedals and the rest of the world is rapidly following suit.

What say you, B&B? Does the prospect of a slushbox-only Wrangler send you into a rabid froth? Or do you tire quickly of needing three legs to drive slowly offroad?

[Image: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles]