QOTD: Nowhere to Hide?

Like the server who came to your table that one time, Ford’s 2021 F-150 boasts many appealing attributes — so many, in fact, it may have you thinking about ditching your current ride for a new one.

Evolutionary on the outside and innovative within, the next-gen pickup offers owners ample space for both sleeping and work. It’s the latter feature we’re discussing today, as it seems Ford had a simple solution to its table problem all along.

According to past reports, F-150 owners aren’t hot on the idea of unsatisfying shifters that don’t require a firm grip of the user’s hand. Truck people don’t like the dials and push-buttons cropping up in sedans and CUVs — they like levers. Shifting into drive should feel like you’ve just thrown one of those comically large power switches in an old monster movie. You author understands this desire.

If a mile-wide console is something you must have in your pickup, a manly shifter may as well take up space on that surface, as there’s only so many cupholders an OEM can cram into a vehicle. But for ’21, Ford’s offering an “ Interior Work Surface” option — essentially, a console lid that unfolds into, well, an interior work surface covering the entire console. To get that lever out of the way, Ford tasked its braintrust with creating a fold-down shifter. Out of sight, out of mind.

However, as the 2021 F-150 retains regular and SuperCab body styles, the front bench seat isn’t dead — which means the stupidly functional but non-innovative column shifter lives on in some F-150s. There’s plenty of real estate for it.

Does an unintrusive column shifter not seem like a simpler and cheaper solution to this console-as-table problem, rather than designing a fold-away console shifter (which, in the pessimist’s view, is just another thing something can go wrong with)? Was it really necessary to create this trick shift lever? Obviously since we’re talking about the most popular and lucrative product on the market, the answer is yes. Anything capable of wowing (and wooing) buyers is, um, on the table when it comes to this profit generator.

And one supposes that console would look pretty bare without a shifter, though some high-end SUVs would beg to differ.

Given a choice, would you have preferred Ford outfitted your workspace-equipped F-150 with a tried-and-true column shifter over this fancy gear selector solution, or is the novelty of such a unit all you need to stay smiling?

[Images: Ford]