[Willowrun]

Great post and fun to read as the "gear to gear" strength has been talked about since the NP205 came out, and I've grown to appreciate the big chain drive NP203 especially with a part time kit.

The depressing thing about this post is it reminds me of where all of these NP (New Process) transfer cases were manufactured. They were all made in a giant plant in Syracuse, NY that I visited in the early 2000's while it was running at full steam. I'm in manufacturing and visit a lot of plants so as a 4x4 enthusiast it was really cool to see where the transfer cases I knew so much about had been made.

Fast forward ten years and a customer of ours in Mexico was receiving all of the machines/equipment/tooling from Syracuse to start making the transfer cases there. Crazy to see half high dunnage chocked with stuff from that big plant that was now closing. No politics please...just sad to see an old plant close and I've seen a few.

Regarding what manufacturers decide to put in what is it oftentimes depending on the production capacity and parts availability of the plants providing the product. The older tech transfer tech while very fast and efficient when running, were expensive, high maintenance, and if they do go down they shut down the entire production of the product so to have other options to fulfill demand is a good thing and in many cases what drives the balance between different options on a vehicle. Every day is a fire fight in manufacturing to keep the lines running but today's CNC production lines allow for at least partial production if a machine breaks as there is redundancy.