When was the last time you saw a new car with roll-up windows? If you're under the age of, say, 35 or thereabouts, there's a chance you've never actually operated one of those stone-age hand cranks in your life, categorizing them with rotary-dial telephones and giant wooden console TV sets.Believe it or not, there were still a few models available with manual windows until very recently. However, they have finally become officially extinct at a mainstream production level. Some of the last holdouts were, unsurprisingly, budget-friendly models such as the Nissan Versa, which was recently discontinued. But, hand-crank windows, in their final years, were not exclusive to super-cheap cars. Here's what you need to know. The Jeep Wrangler And Gladiator Still Offered Manual Windows Until Very Recently Stellantis When you read about the last cars to drop a budget-friendly option, you expect to find a lot of cheap vehicles. However, the Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator actually held onto their hand-cranked windows years after Mitsubishi and Nissan had both dropped the feature. Entry-level Jeeps could still be found with a manual window as late as 2024. A pair of mid-cycle refreshes for the 2024 model year resulted in all of the new Jeeps rolling off the lot with electronic windows.Manual windows made sense on the Wrangler and the Gladiator in large part because of their removable doors. No power windows means there's no need to worry about supplying electricity for something that you can pull off and leave in the garage. Wrangler doors with electric windows have to be plugged in and unplugged during removal, unlike manual windows.Hand-crank windows also suit the Wrangler's character nicely. It's a stripped-down adventure vehicle, and hand-cranked windows have a lot of appeal for the kind of driver who "doesn't need all those newfangled gadgets." The Nissan Versa Dropped The Manual Windows One Generation Before Its Retirement NissanOne of the very last budget cars to feature manual windows was the Nissan Versa, which still had hand-cranked windows in the base S model. The Versa Note was also available with hand-cranked windows. A car with a meager $12,460 base price feels like something from a century ago, not just seven years. We're not sure if you can even buy a golf cart for that money in 2026. The Chevy Spark Still Offered Roll-Up Windows Into The 2020s ChevroletThey don't even sell new cars under $20,000 anymore in 2026, so the 2022 Chevy Spark, a $13,600 two-door, boggles the mind today. The model was from four years ago. You don't get prices that low without foregoing some creature comforts like automatic windows. The Spark was on its fourth and final generation in 2022. While it definitely felt cheap, we actually liked the light steering and short wheelbase on this car when we reviewed one during the model year. They don't make budget cars like this anymore. The Slate Truck Promises Manual Windows Jay Leno's GarageAt present, no mainstream vehicle offers hand-crank windows. But that could change with the release of the upcoming Slate truck, a highly customizable and affordable electric pickup with backing from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's investment firm. An electric pickup with manual windows is kind of a funny idea. The Slate was initially aiming for a price point in the $20,000 range. However, with EV credits evaporating, a sticker price somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 now seems more likely. The Mitsubishi Mirage Still Had Manual Rear Windows In 2019 MitsubishiFor 2019, the Mitsubishi Mirage was available with hand-cranked windows in the back, while the front doors were both automatic-standard. The Mirage is another one of those cars that was unbelievably cheap for its era, but the price point makes sense when you look at its piddly 78-horsepower engine, a 1.2-liter straight-three paired to a five-speed manual transmission. Hand Crank Windows Made Sense, Until They Didn't Nissan Do you know why McDonald's doesn't offer hot dogs? Early on, it was because founder Ray Kroc thought they were unhygienic. But after his passing, the fast food giant actually ran a few test runs with hot dogs, only to find they weren't selling enough to be worth the hassle. Fast food is fast because it's streamlined, and adding hot dogs to the menu slowed the line and took up valuable storage space for a food item that maybe 1% of customers bought.The same concept applies to hand-crank windows. The feature made sense as a budget option for a while, since it was cheaper than automatic windows. However, when 99% of your buyers want automatic windows, an automaker is actually spending more money to produce the less-expensive configuration. A company has to engineer a different mechanism and stock the parts for something that few customers actually order.At a mass-production level, non-standard parts will almost always be more expensive to develop and produce than standard parts. The cost of an electric motor and a switch is trivial compared to the expense of building one hand-crank window for every 99 automatic windows. Who Was Still Buying Hand-Crank Windows In 2022, Anyway? Some of the last cars available with hand-crank windows, like the Chevy Spark, were popular fleet vehicles for driving schools and rental companies. These cars needed only to be functional. You don't have to learn how to operate a premium sound system to earn your driver's license, for instance, and car renters typically are not spending enough time behind the wheel to really need all those creature comforts.The situation also dovetails nicely with production concerns. If you sell 99 cars with automatic windows for every one an automaker sells with hand-crank windows, it makes zero sense to keep offering the manual windows as an option. On the other hand, if a driving school is buying Nissan Versas by the dozen, manual windows may actually become a selling point, because they might only save them $200 on a personal vehicle purchase. Still, it could save them $2,400 on a fleet purchase.So the list of manual window buyers in the 2020s might look something like this. Taxi companies Rental car companies Driving schools Off-roaders who like taking the doors off their Jeeps People who will happily drive a rental-spec car to save a couple of bucks It's all about volume, just like with those McDonald's hot dogs. If 10% of your buyers want them, it might make sense to incorporate them into the assembly line. If it's closer to 1%, you're slowing production down and costing the company thousands of dollars to help a small minority of buyers save $100-$200 on the cost of purchase, an expense that a dealer might knock off the sticker price to sweeten the deal, anyway. Hand-Cranked Windows Might Stick Around For Awhile Bring A TrailerIf the Slate truck actually hits the market with hand-cranked windows, then we could be living in a very brief window of time (if you pardon the pun) where manual windows are not an option.Jeep discontinued the hand-cranked windows on the Wrangler and Gladiator a year ago, and the electric Amazon truck is currently targeting a late 2026 release. This would mean that, in the long history of the American automobile, 2026 was the only model year with no manual windows offered in a mainstream production vehicle.We probably won't see hand-cranked windows returning as a default option anytime soon, however. Even in the Slate, the manual windows are more of a marketing gimmick than a meaningful cost-cutting measure. The hand crank says, "Look at how hard we're working to bring the price down!" and brings a bit of warmth and retro charm to a truck that might otherwise feel more like an appliance than like a personal vehicle.Source: Jeep, Amazon, Nissan, Chevrolet.