What was the first car to NOT have a manual transmission as an option?

[Colly0410]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Does the neighbor's employer actually own the car or just lease it? It's a very common practice in the US. Those cars are rather expensive even here!
BTW, what is VAT?

Yes it's value added tax as init4fun says, it's 20% on just about everything except most food, but sweets & takeaways are VAT'd. New cars have car purchase tax based on CO2 emissions plus VAT. Petrol (gas) has a tax on it, then they put VAT on the whole lot including the tax, so they actually tax a tax. You also pay a road fund tax every month, 6 months or year, mines just over 12 pounds a month taken straight out of the bank. You used to have a tax disc to put in your windscreen with expiry date on it but they scraped that a few years ago, they know if you have not paid by a number plate (tag) data base the cops have access to, they also have roadside camera's all over the place to keep an eye on you, big brother is watching...

[Jon A.]

Mostly automatics here in Canada too, but I don't care for them at all. It stands to reason though, most of those drivers need to keep a hand free for texting.

Big rig truck drivers who insist on an automatic, a.k.a. a steering wheel holders, shouldn't be driving trucks at all in my opinion. Truckers worth their salt probably get to the point where using a clutch all day doesn't bother their left leg at all. Use it or lose it I say.

That's about as macho as I ever get, take it or leave it.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Jon A.

Mostly automatics here in Canada too, but I don't care for them at all. It stands to reason though, most of those drivers need to keep a hand free for texting.

Big rig truck drivers who insist on an automatic, a.k.a. a steering wheel holders, shouldn't be driving trucks at all in my opinion. Truckers worth their salt probably get to the point where using a clutch all day doesn't bother their left leg at all. Use it or lose it I say.

That's about as macho as I ever get, take it or leave it.

When I bought my first car 55 years ago, I couldn't afford the extra money that an auto transmission cost. The first 7 years of driving, was nothing but manual. When I did get an automatic, driving it, I thought, this is pretty nice, especially in heavy city traffic.
When I bought my 2006 Jeep Wrangler, I thought it should be a manual like the original Jeep.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

When I bought my first car 55 years ago, I couldn't afford the extra money that an auto transmission cost. The first 7 years of driving, was nothing but manual. When I did get an automatic, driving it, I thought, this is pretty nice, especially in heavy city traffic.
When I bought my 2006 Jeep Wrangler, I thought it should be a manual like the original Jeep.

There's the main benefit of an automatic, getting through gridlocks with ease. The road network where I am is known to be poorly designed, so there are more here than in real cities. I've heard of bus drivers saying that's why they can't keep on schedule.

I know a fellow with two Smart ForTwos with the automated manual, something I hadn't even heard of until I actually rode in one of them a few weeks ago. He goes through the gears manually, and I can feel the rumble from the electric clutch engaging. The system is fairly interesting although still not my bag of toys. The one he's using now, I think he just uses it when the other is is awaiting significant repairs.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Jon A.

There's the main benefit of an automatic, getting through gridlocks with ease. The road network where I am is known to be poorly designed, so there are more here than in real cities. I've heard of bus drivers saying that's why they can't keep on schedule.

I know a fellow with two Smart ForTwos with the automated manual, something I hadn't even heard of until I actually rode in one of them a few weeks ago. He goes through the gears manually, and I can feel the rumble from the electric clutch engaging. The system is fairly interesting although still not my bag of toys. The one he's using now, I think he just uses it when the other is is awaiting significant repairs.

I guess you have to own two of them, one to drive and one to repair.
My 2017 Jeep Compass has a transmission similar to that, but I just drive it as an automatic.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I guess you have to own two of them, one to drive and one to repair.

Nailed it. He does all the work on his family's cars and likes the Smart at least partly because it's a really cheap way to get from A to B. He fixed up a 2006 Mercedes-Benz C230 sport coupe for his daughter to use, but she decided it was too fancy for her liking so he sold it for just enough to break even. Fair enough, a car like that would make the wrong kind of statement for me as well. I'll stick with old and rather obscure.

[Sandy G]

Packard developing their own automatic was considered quite a feat at the time, as even mighty Generous Motors hadn't come out w/Hydramatic til '38,& I think they were kinda troublesome til the late '40s-early '50s. Ford introduced their semi-auto, Liquamatic Drive, in '41, but only in Mercurys & Lincolns. It was so awful that it did not make it past '42, & IIRC, most were replaced w/std 3/4 speeds. It is not known if any survived to the present day. Ford swallowed their pride & bought Hydramatics from GM til their own auto boxes came out in '51. Automatics, power steering, power brakes, it all came together in the early Fifties. No longer did you have to be an exceptionally big, strong man to drive a car. Any 5' 2" mother of3 squalling brats could wheel a big station wagon full of said squalling brats, plus several puppies, & do her daily chores-Including taking the pups to the vet's to get their shots, as well as the biggest, burliest man could. Of course now, even inferring that a woman is in any way can't do anything any man can do will likely start a pretty decent cuss fight, but 1949 America was a bit different.Lots of older women when I was a kid didn't drive, they didn't want to, or they were scared of cars, or somesuch. Neither one of my grannies drove, one never had & the other stopped when she moved in w/us when I was born.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Packard developing their own automatic was considered quite a feat at the time, as even mighty Generous Motors hadn't come out w/Hydramatic til '38,& I think they were kinda troublesome til the late '40s-early '50s. Ford introduced their semi-auto, Liquamatic Drive, in '41, but only in Mercurys & Lincolns. It was so awful that it did not make it past '42, & IIRC, most were replaced w/std 3/4 speeds. It is not known if any survived to the present day. Ford swallowed their pride & bought Hydramatics from GM til their own auto boxes came out in '51. Automatics, power steering, power brakes, it all came together in the early Fifties. No longer did you have to be an exceptionally big, strong man to drive a car. Any 5' 2" mother of3 squalling brats could wheel a big station wagon full of said squalling brats, plus several puppies, & do her daily chores-Including taking the pups to the vet's to get their shots, as well as the biggest, burliest man could. Of course now, even inferring that a woman is in any way can't do anything any man can do will likely start a pretty decent cuss fight, but 1949 America was a bit different.Lots of older women when I was a kid didn't drive, they didn't want to, or they were scared of cars, or somesuch. Neither one of my grannies drove, one never had & the other stopped when she moved in w/us when I was born.

My uncle bought a brand-new '40 Oldsmobile with the Hydramatic. The transmission failed about two years later. It was during the war and parts were unavailable. They dealer had to convert it back to a manual so it could be driven. Naturally he was really POed.

[Sandy G]

Somewhere in the back of my feeble little mind, I seem to recall that the same man held patents on both Hydramatic & Chrysler's Torqueflite, which came out postwar, IIRC.Having the benefit of a bit more development, Torqueflite avoided Hydramatic's early teething troubles, & even Uncle Tom McCahill called Torqueflite the best tranny in the business. Read Uncle Tom RELIGIOUSLY when a budding Idiot Savant back in grade school- Learnt a LOT from him. Almost every one of his articles were loaded w/amazing nuggets of info that you couldn't readily find elsewhere & he had a very fresh witty writing style that a lot of today's scribes would do well to emulate. And I take back the "Idiot Savant" quip-Welll, the "Savant" part, anhoo.... The "Idiot" part ? Well, as most of you lot can attest to-There's NO DOUBT whatsoever about THAT...In no way, shape, or form...

[nasadowsk]

IIRC, what killed the original Hydramatic was the fact that there was one shift in it, I think 2-3, that had to actuate and release a whole bunch of clutches and stuff with the correct timing, and it was tricky for them to do. The Torqueflite and later stuff were 3 speeds, where every gear change was just a clutch or a band or two.

A lot of companies did weird stuff back then with automatics, probably to get around patents.

The common until now PRNDL was mandated by the feds with pushing from Nader, who seemed to think PNDLR was the source of all the world's problems (and console shifters - he wanted a ban on them, IIRC from his book). If course, I'm sure if the US auto industry at the time was already PRNDL, he'd have argued against it for something else.

Of course now that he crawled into whatever hole he came out of, cars have all sorts of bizzare shifters that 1/2 the world can't figure out...

[Sandy G]

I THNK the Hydramatic was always a 3 speed, but the Powerglide & Fordamatic, which both appeared in '51 were 2 speed boxes. They were supposedly simplified designs to be cheaper to produce, being they went into GM & Fords' cheapest cars, but they were inefficient as hell. Gm upped the Chevy's displacement from 216 cubic inches to 235 to give the Powerslide a little more horsepower so turtles were less likely to run away & hide from it. My parents had a '51 Chevy w/a Powerglide in it, my mom learned to drive in it. She couldn't-Or WOULDN'T learn to work a manual, they could afford little else than a Chevy. My dad told me it took til next year for it to make it to 60 MPH. You'd stomp on it, grow a beard waiting for it to hit 55 or so, it would go "BANG !!", shift into high, & then you'd eventually top out 70-75 or so. Cars-Even the legendary Ford V-8s were rather feeble appliances, at least til '55, when Chevy's equally legendary V-8 appeared. But you really didn't see the pavement-rippers until later on in the latter half of the Fifties.

[init4fun]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

I THINK the Hydramatic was always a 3 speed.....

In my long ago recollection I think I remember the "Dual Coupling Hydramatic" in my 61 Caddy as having been a four speed . I don't know how they did it , but I seem to recall the "Dual Coupling" referring to a second small torque converter type device behind the regular torque converter , and that may have had something to do with an extra ratio .

Edited to add ; Wikki identifies this as the "Controlled Coupling Hydramatic" and confirms it to be a four speed . I'm almost certain , however , that the car's owner's manual identified it as a "Dual Coupling Hydramatic" , I'm not sure which is correct except that I remember having 4 speeds in my 61 and only 3 speeds in my 64 , and felt the 4 speed better suited a car of that size (nice low first gear to get it moving quickly) .

Originally Posted by init4fun

I had a 1961 Cadillac that had PNDLR and then a 1964 that had the normal PRNDL , so for Cadillac the changeover must have been 1962 or 1963 . the 61 had what they called a "Dual Coupling Hydramatic" whereas the 64 had the "Turbo Hydramatic 400" .

[Sandy G]

GM completely re-did their "Big-Car" lines in '65. In '64, they had hydramatic in the Sixty-Two series Cads & TURBO-hydramatic in all the others. In '65, ALL the Cads had turbo-hydramatic, a new perimeter frame, a swanky new body that had all the interior dimensions increased, especially the front legroom/floor area, curved side windows, & Cad FINALLY got rid of its fins, but by '64, they were mere shadows of their former selves. My granddad had a tan '60 Sedan DeVille, it had the OMG fins, the compound curved windshield, I think "Dagmar" bumpers, it was quite literally a one-car parade cruising down the street. We were out in it once during a hailstorm, I just KNEW it was gonna bust that wacky windscreen, but, it didn't. He traded it on a '68 Sedan DeV, it was that extremely fugly color they only had THAT year-kinda gold, kinda green, kinda brown. Inside & out. The best name for it was "Babyshit Brown", that was pretty close to the most apt description anybody could think of. It looked like an overgrown Chevy Biscayne, no chrome, no sex, no nothing. I was very disappointed in that car-it was really the polar opposite of the zany '60 model.

[old_tv_nut]

Interesting. I always thought the Hydramatic was 4-speed.

According to the following there was a three speed version later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Rot...c_transmission

"Roto Hydramatic (sometimes spelled Roto Hydra-Matic or Roto-Hydramatic) was an automatic transmission built by General Motors and used on some Oldsmobile and Pontiac and Holden models from 1961–1965. It was based on the earlier, four-speed Hydramatic, but was more compact, providing only three forward speeds."

[benman94]

The Hydramatic transmission was a joint effort between engineering at Olds, and engineering at Cadillac. All early Hydramatic transmissions were four speed, with two sets of gear ratios manufactured: one for cars, and one for GMC and Chevrolet trucks.