My God. I didn't think anybody drove a Slant Six MoPar anymore as a daily driver. Time for a new ride, maybe?:smoke:

That is correct. Ford, with 1.49 million to Chevrolet's 1.45, was the top seller for Model Year 1957. A surging Plymouth produced 731,001 cars in 1957 to surpass Buick for third place.

Most people think the '57 Chevy was the sales leader. Ford was, in '57 and in 1959.:smoke:

Yeah, they had planned to use the 58 Chevy and Pontiac bodies for 2 years but that spooked them so much that they came out with another brand new body in 59. The 1958 Chevy and Pontiacs are a one year only style.

In hindsight, they may have done better using the original plan. Both Ford and Chrysler stayed with their old bodies for one more year although both were heavily facelifted in all brands. The 59 Chevy would have sold a lot better with different fins and grill as the 1960 proved when they took over the #1 spot again.

Ford had a LOT of trouble w/the '57s, IIRC...They were one of the first cars that were made w/a new "Deep Draw" technique in stamping the body panels, & the metal could be thin in places, & they had a lot of trouble w/rustouts.

Up here with the road salt we use in the winter, the main problem was around the headlight surrounds on the front fenders. They would completely rot out and it was hard to fix and make it not noticeable. The 57's and 58's were the worst. The 59's were much better. The rest of the car wasn't much worse than anything else of the time as I recall.

Yep-Believe it or Nutz, WE use a LOT of salt on the roads here, too. Mud would also pack in 'em, & rot 'em out pretty quick, too..

Not to change the subject or anything, but does anybody remember the Ford (cars and trucks) with the manual 3 speed transmission with OVERDRIVE? They had a handle under the dash that you could use to operate the transmission as a regular 3 speed which was a better choice for driving up and down hills; ESPECIALLY with a load. If you were driving a pickup with a heavy load you had little control on hills if you were in overdrive mode because once you started going down hill it was like you were in neutral until or unless you gave it gas which would not help matters in this scenario. I believe the gods of safety outlawed these transmissions in the 70s for issues like this AND the fact that when parked in overdrive mode the only gear that held the vehicle was reverse; the rest were like neutral! Add this factor to that of human nature and you have (and probably had) disasters in the making.

I have a 1965 Ford Custom Cab with this transmission and I learned quickly that you simply must realize the mechanical nature of the "beast" and you will do fine and get to trip people out who don't believe that you have an extra gear that you shift by letting off the gas for a second. If anyone is interested in owning this truck, PM me. I recently put it up for the "s" word. Don't want to get this whole thread moved to another website! LOL! But since things went this direction I figured I could tell an interesting story along with potentially finding someone interested.

Lots of cars and trucks used overdrive in the 50's and 60's. Ford even had a two speed rear end that they used in the thirties and fourties.

Overdrive allowed use of a higher geared rear end so low powered cars could have some snap, then overdrive allowed decent highway mileage. Some brands such as Studebaker and Nash got very acceptable gas mileage using overdrive and promoted it heavily.

Use dropped because manual transmission sales, even in trucks, dropped to a fraction of what they were. Big commerical trucks continued to use two and three speed rear ends to accomplish the same thing.

I knew a guy in high school who drove a '54 Ford wagon with O'drive and remember how it shifted into O by lifting the right foot.

It's real interesting I think how Ford engineered the manual overdrive. There is a lot more going on there than one might assume. There is a speed sensing device on the extension housing of the transmission that must send a signal to a relay when the proper speed has been achieved in order for the overdrive to function. There is a switch mounted to the gas pedal which is used for more or less a passing gear function. Interestingly, it kills the ignition for a split second to allow slack in the drive-train which is necessary for the planetary gear-set to disengage (or something like that). When I first bought this truck I was a bit weary of all or the quirky aspects of having this setup work properly, or the roll away issue, but after some time I feel very comfortable with the truck and with the price of gasoline I am glad to have it in working order. Inversely, if something goes wrong I can always lock OD out and use what is essentially a normal transmission.

The 57 Ford Fairlane 500 I mentioned before had overdrive. My brother was driving it on the highway, and he decided to give it a try. And it worked! "We have overdrive!" At the time I didn't understand what that was, but I didn't ask as I didn't want to risk being called an idiot... He was my older brother by 6 years. As I now (mis)understand it, overdrive is when the car tires rotate faster than the engine crankshaft. Which makes sense to do only at highway speed.

No! you neglected the final drive reduction ratio, on the order of 2.5 to 4 :1. Do the math... If you have a tire that is 2 feet in diameter, the circumference is about 6.3 feet... if it was turning, say 2500 R.P.M. , that would be almost 16,000 feet per minute, or about 3 miles per minute!

jr

DOH! :D Looks like I misunderstood it... :D