Save the manuals! It’s become something of a battle cry for car enthusiasts. And we can’t fault anyone for feeling that way about a thumping great manual transmission. There’s an ineffaceable feeling of control that comes along with working a clutch, revving through the power band, and performing a shift just right. But a manual isn’t for everyone. Sometimes the manual variant of our favorite cars is simply impossible to find. Fret not, though. You can get a car with a traditional automatic or DCT and still love the means by which you select park, reverse, neutral, and drive.
We’ve assembled a list of some of the coolest (and in some cases, quirkiest) automatic gear selectors ever installed in an automobile. It’s not all new equipment, either. Some of our favorites span from a brand-new Bentley to Chevrolet Camaros and Edsel Citations of yesteryear. So, get in, buckle up, and check out these shifters, levers, knobs, and honest-to-goodness touchtone telephone-style buttons. We’re not kidding about that last one.
This is hardly an exhaustive list. What it is, though, is a collection of some of the coolest, quirkiest, and most noteworthy means to move a car with an automatic transmission. From modern art looks to telephone-style buttons and cartoonish lightning rods, these are some of our favorites.
2026 Bentley Continental GT
A Big ‘B’ In The Poshest Of GT Cars
A Bentley interior is something of an event. Duh, right? Well, the latest 2026 Bentley Continental GT is no different. Bentley’s resident grand tourer packs an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox mated to a muscular twin-turbocharged V8 with a hybrid system pairing. But to get the heavy Continental GT, you’ll have to select drive via the GT’s prominent shifter. While some brands leave gear selection in their automatic transmission-equipped vehicles to volume knob-style controls or minimalist switches, Bentley went the emphatically prideful route. The shifter is emblazoned with a big ol’ “B,” as if to say, “boy, I wonder how to get this thing moving.” Nonetheless, the monogrammed shifter fits with the Continental GT’s comfortable, unapologetically opulent interior and its fine materials.
Find 2026 Bentley Continental GT and more cars for sale on our Marketplace
2026 Dodge Charger SIXPACK
Pistols At Dawn
The latest Dodge Charger has had something of an uphill fight on its hands. Even with the twin-turbocharged inline-six Dodge Charger SIXPACK pumping out as much as 550 horsepower, fans reviled the Charger for its lack of a HEMI V8. Still, the 2026 Dodge Charger SIXPACK channels the classic Charger of the 1960s and 1970s with a retro aesthetic and a modern take on the old-school pistol grip shifter of Mopars past. Even without an eight-cylinder mill, it’s hard to hate that. Just don’t expect to find a wood-grain finish on the pistol grip like you would in a classic Dodge.
Find 2026 Dodge Charger Daytona and more cars for sale on our Marketplace
2025 Porsche 911
Try Not To Shave With Your Porsche’s Gear Selector
The 2025 Porsche 911 kicked off the second chapter of the 992 generation’s lineup, and the ultra-modern little gear selector for the eight-speed PDK dual-clutch automatic makes our list of favorites. Admittedly, the 911’s gear selector looks a little like a travel electric razor. Even the grippy touch surface at the top of the Porsche 911’s selector looks like it could take your muzzle down to a cleanly shaven face. Still, like the 911’s clean, classic look, the stubby little gear selector looks right at home in the 992.2 Porsche 911’s simple, stylish interior. Though you won’t find a key parked next to the steering wheel in the 992.2, you’ll find a push-to-start button where a physical key once resided.
Find 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera and more cars for sale on our Marketplace
2020 Pagani Huayra
It’s All In The Design
If you know or have heard of Pagani, then you know that the Italian supercar marque doesn’t do things subtly. Everything is dramatic, show-stopping, rolling art. The same can be said of the 2020 Pagani Huayra and its gear selector. As a whole, the Huayra’s interior looks like an Art Deco fever dream of fine modern materials, a space-age espresso machine, and the Chrysler Building. And at its center, the Pagani sports a high-shine, almost phallic gear selector in a gated housing. It’s truly an event. And in the 2020 Pagani Huayra Roadster BC, the little gated selector is topped with a Porsche 917-esque finished wooden knob. Bellissimo.
Find 2020 Pagani Huayra Roadster BC and more cars for sale on our Marketplace
2019 Lamborghini Huracán
Who Needs A Stick?
The Lamborghini Huracán did more than exude the sort of pageantry we’ve all come to expect from the Raging Bull. It was also a sales dynamo for the company. And the interior doesn’t let down the Huracán’s wild exterior aesthetic. Don’t expect a physical knob, stick, or lever in this one, though. Instead, the designers behind the 2019 Lamborghini Huracán forwent something you could grab for something you could push. To interact with the Huracán’s seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, the driver will have to work a push-button array à la a spaceship ripped from the pages of science fiction. And while you won’t find a third pedal in the mix, the Huracán has a set of oversized carbon fiber paddles for plucking through gears.
2016 Volvo XC90
A Swedish Gear Selector With Modern Skyscraper Looks
Nearly a decade ago, Jeremy Clarkson said Volvo made some of the most handsome interiors in the business. Now, that’s purely subjective. That said, there’s one Volvo interior feature that we couldn’t help but include in our list: the 2016 Volvo XC90’s super-modern gear selector. To use the Volvo XC90’s eight-speed automatic transmission, you have to grab hold of the SUV’s short, stylish little selector. In earnest, the gear selector looks like it was plucked from a modern megacity’s skyline, and frankly, it works.
2012 Audi A8
An AWD Luxury Sedan With A Stylish Selector
Who doesn’t love a V8-powered luxury sedan? How about a used eight-cylinder luxury four-door with standard all-wheel drive? If that describes your tastes, the 2012 Audi A8 should be on your list. Better yet, a glimpse into the big, comfy Audi’s interior reveals its almost maritime-looking automatic gear selector, one of our favorite design features in the A8. Rather than designing a boring, upright grip, Audi designers went for more of a boat throttle aesthetic. The grip jets out horizontally from one upright stalk. And if you find the eight-speed automatic a bit too boring on your drives, you can work your way through the gears in manual shift mode. Not a bad pairing for a mile-munching V8 cruiser. Bon voyage.
1983 Oldsmobile Hurst/Olds ‘Lightning Rods’
It’s Alive!
Have you ever watched a colorful supervillain in a cartoon? That, or a film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s beloved classic, “Frankenstein.” Well, then you’ll know what enthusiasts are talking about when they call the gear selectors in a 1983 Oldsmobile Hurst “lightning rods.” You read that right, it’s selectors, plural. The factory Hurst Lightning Rod system used three gear selectors arranged one next to another: one for the standard drive modes, one for second gear, and the outermost shifter for first gear. It was marketed as a performance feature to make the G-body Oldsmobile Cutlass more alluring to fans. That said, it didn’t do much to simplify the two-lever operation of the Dual-Gate system that came before.
1969 Chevrolet Camaro
Cleared For Takeoff
In 1967, the automatic transmission-equipped Chevrolet Camaro used a fairly standard, single-stalk gear selector with a horizontal grip at the top. While it allowed drivers to shove off using the first-gen Camaro’s three-speed automatic, it wasn’t exactly flashy. However, for the 1968 Chevrolet Camaro and the wider, more aggressive 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, the little shifter bowed out for a quirky “horseshoe” style selector. You can see where the horseshoe description comes from, too. It’s two upright sections, joined by a horizontal section in the middle. Truthfully, the thing bears a resemblance to an old-school airplane throttle. While quirky, it’s enough to earn a spot on our list.
1958 Edsel ‘Teletouch’
Dial ‘D’ For Drive
Now we arrive at what might be the strangest, most spectacularly off-the-wall automatic gear selector system ever. It’s the “Teletouch” system you’d find in an Edsel automobile, like a Citation or Corsair, from 1958. Imagine your automatic gear selector packed up and moved to an array of buttons in the center of your steering wheel. Now, imagine those buttons looked something like the metal touch-tone buttons on a payphone (look it up, kids). That’s the Teletouch system. Unfortunately, the setup was prone to frequent failures and issues. And talk about rare; you’ll only find the Teletouch system on Edsel automobiles from the 1958 model year.