One of the great things I like about my Tracker is its ability to be push started on 20 feet of flat road. I've had a few times where I had just barely enough battery power to start the computer and fuel pump and a push was all it needed for the alternator to take over.
Because of that however you are not the first person to wonder if you could add a crank start to a newer car. You would certainly need a release that would safely disengage the crank once the engine fires but on a small car like mine with the extra pulley for an optional AC compressor it's extremely tempting to try.

@ MadMan : Hmm, thought you're talking about cars that can be cranckshaft when you mentioned to pull them.
Yes, a tractor can helf. And even horses.
But a old autmatic transmision car can't be hand crankshaft?

A friend of mine an 80s Lada that still had the hole in the in the block for crank, but I don't remember it coming with the actual crank. It probably would have worked - while the body had been updated I doubt anything else was newer than a 60s design - there were certainly no electronics in it.

To the OP: is this a theoretical question, or do you actually want to try it? The danger of hand cranking an engine, is kickback, when the engine starts and violently jerks the crank. A lot of people in the early 20th century got broken wrists from this, and there's a special open handed way to hold the crank to minimize the chance of this happening.

I have to say though, I don't know about you, but for me, my hands and wrists being in good shape basically determine my ability to work, and be financially solvent. I wouldn't want to risk them over a broken down car. Consider hand cranking an engine to be like asbestos insulation, or gasoline welding torches, or leaky steam boilers in houses, or using mercury to separate gold out of Ore. .. There's some things which are just too dangerous to your health do, no matter how traditional. It won't make anyone more of a man to be injured or dead in the course of a trivial activity like starting a car.

Theoretically possible. But most true Automatic cars were built 1941 and later which is several years after they dropped cranks from cars.
An interesting thing is you can roll start some early automatics. I hear they even described it in the owners manual. This ended in the early 60's IIRC. IIRC it needed to be moving at ~20MPH for it to work...Probably only practical on hills.

@ maxhifi : I never tryed. I'm just curios.

In aircraft maintenance school we were required to "hand prop" an engine to life , and this was done with highly retarded (late) ignition timing to specifically eliminate the danger of the engine kicking back . A lever that had a "start" and "run" position had to be closely minded , forget to set it to "start" when starting at one's own peril ! The early cars with hand cranks also had a lever that would retard the timing , a feature that naturally disappeared with the hand crank starter .

:thmbsp: Yes indeed , up until the early 1960s most automatic transmissions had a "rear" fluid pump . This pump was connected to the transmission's output shaft , which is turning whenever the driveshaft is , and would supply fluid pressure to engage the transmission's clutches when roll starting . The pump's designed purpose was to prevent transmission damage when towing the car with the rear wheels on the ground , that spinning output shaft needed fluid whether the rest of the transmission was turning or not . Right around the time the rear pump disappeared (due to manufacturing cost considerations) the manufacturers began recommending the cars be towed with the front wheels on the ground (and steering locked) to prevent the transmission damage that would happen if the rear wheels were on the ground .

i push or roll started a mazda GLC for months.. starter went out... I pumped the tires up to about 50 psi, as i had to push it myself on a level street. parked on a hill when i could, but i could get it started on the flat if necessary, then it snowed and i had to go out and finally replace the starter.. too hard to push it in the snow.

Wow, must be hard to get to the starter on those...2/3 of the cars I've owned needed the starters replaced, and I changed them myself...IIRC the worst was only about an all day job (mostly because I was not making it as easy as it should have been). DIY auto work sucks once it is cold enough to need a coat/gloves and or it has snowed. I try to save a late fall weekend for a once over/preventative maintenance session to try to head off all issues likely to need attention before spring.

Two words: heated garage... I set up a 5kW electric heater in my garage for such occasions, let it run for a full day before starting repairs. It doesn't change the fact that cars are absolutely filthy in the winter, but it sure takes the edge off. It was - 30C outside when the front main seal on my truck took a dump last winter. I think there's no getting around the fact that extreme weather provokes failures, gotta be prepared to deal with it.

Tried that once with a space heater and my uninsulated garage...The roof is tall and there is no ceiling...If the space heater did anything for the day it was on than what it did was all well above my head...All the air at ground level was still colder than a witches titty. At this point, any job I'm prepared to do on a car is cheaper to have a shop do than do comfortably in the winter...Granted We've had occasional freak 45f days in January (ballanced by blizzards in early May). A friend used to have a heated garage I could sometimes use till he moved away from his folks...

Mine is insulated with wood shavings, door is uninsulated and single pane windows. A normal space heater does little to nothing to take the edge off except for thawing your hands once in a while.

I use a 240V 5kW construction heater I picked up cheap at princess auto.. plugged into a 10AWG extension cord, which I run into the house through a basement window and plug into my electric dryer outlet. Total hack job yes, but that heater actually does make it tolerable in the garage. Especially if the heater is blasting at the general area of work.