Musings on automotive dinosaurs

I currently have two column shift manual cars,  a 68 Ford and a 59 Mercedes.  I MUCH prefer floor shift.

Let us not forget that Alfa Romeo made 5 speed column shift Giulia TIs. The factory published adjustment procedure was four pages of hilarious stick figure people on the various linkage parts. I wish I still had the manual to post here, does anyone else? I sold mine on eBay to a nice chap in Holland, and the post office (probably here) lost it. I have never seen one, but I would like to try a properly adjusted one. Column shift Saab Sonetts shift much nicer than the floor shift ones, and the linkage is much simpler too!

In rural Iowa, those old pickup truck interiors were layered with dust that came up from the holes for the clutch/brake pedals in the floor boards when driving on dirt/gravel roads.  I also remember the smell of gasoline because the fuel tank was under/behind the seat and vented to the atmosphere thru a hole in the gas cap.

How about manually engaged overdrives. I seem to recall some cars would shift out of overdrive when depressing the accelerator all the way to the floor.

The problems with 3 on the tree shifters were both Chevrolet related. The linkage was very delicate and needed to be shifted slowly or it would hang up between 1-2 upshifts. The beautiful chrome shift lever would break when Iowa farm boys attempted speed/power shifts from low to second gear. Local dealer always had a box of them in parts.  Even factory floor shifts left alot to be desired. Thus, the invention of Hurst Shifters to replace 3 on the tree and 4 spd floor shifters. 

In reply to outasite :

Overdrives were popular again for a while with smaller car companies who couldn't afford to tool up for new transmissions.

I got chance to rebuild the Laycock de Normanvill overdrive in a mid-70s MG.  A thrust bearing died and the case got chewed up, we ended up machining the case deeper and made a spacer.  Lot of screwing around getting the depth right since this wasn't something they gave a spec for, just "Replace case assembly", which is great in 1975 but not so much in 2015.  Also, removing the overdrive from the back of the trans required removing the engine from the vehicle!

Volvo used manually engaged overdrives up until, I think, 1990!  And of course there was the "4+3" in the C4 Corvettes, which was an overdrive unit stacked on to a T10, but it was computer controlled.  GM didn't trust the T5 behind a 350, so they made do with the overdrive on a T10 until ZF started making high torque 6 speeds.

In reply to outasite :

Oh! you remind me of the through the floor pedals on my Volvo 445 Duett. I still have trouble stepping on a clutch pedal if I am driving through a puddle, and the Duett died 29 years ago. Only took cold water to the kneecap a few times to acquire that habit.

noddaz said:

But it made me wonder, what else is out there that is dying away? First thought was non-ABS. Carbs have been gone for a long time, I'm not even sure I've driven a car that was carburetted. Any others?

 

Not quite yet, internal combustion engines...

Sliding rear windows on trucks.