Aad fact about autos, not much if any deceleration down hills. Take for instance you are heading down a very steep long hill. At the bottom theres a creek and by then your brakes are glowing red. Either you stop there for 5mins to cool down your brakes, or you take the chance going thru the water and hope you don't warp your front disks...

That also depends on gearing. My Blue Monster has an auto and decelerates almost to a stop down a steep hill in 1st gear. When you are doing insane rock crawling and technical stuff...you want an auto. Too bad Subaru didnt make a HD auto with low range. That would be pizzimp.

What about a hand throatle? I have seen on a website where they do that for the older EAs. But I cant find it anywhere? Anyone know what I am talking about? Cause I want to put one on my car

 

that wouldn't solve anything. it's a matter of clutch vs. torque converter, not how many pedals vs. how many feet.....

If you could somehow slip a lockable touque converter between the stock soobie engine and a Dual/Range I think you would have something, years ago I built a buggy out of datsun 2wd truck running gear, its a automatic and I love it, it goes almost anywhere with 33" rear tires

My dad's ford tractor has a manual tranny with a reversable fluid coupling. 4spd tranny, no synchros unfortuanately, but the tractor goes forward or backward at the flick of a lever. It would be cool to have a tranny like that for offroad. Best of both worlds.