It's no longer "standard", so stop calling it one!

NYG95GA wrote: A woman wears a *pair* of panties, but just *one* bra.

why does my mind go into the gutter?

first transmissions and then I start thinking about panties and I am now wondering what my wife is doing......

DoctorBlade wrote: Three on the Tree. I drove a early 70's van with that transmission. I think the CabOver design spooked me more.

I had a friend whose father had a '70 Pontiac Catalina wagon (much like the one in your avatar, except blue) with a 3-on-the-tree. Eventually the cable linkage gave up the ghost and they put a Hurst floor shifter in it, but something about it didn't fit and they had to reverse the linkage so the pattern was flipped left to right.

It was weird to see a giant old woodgrain wagon with 3 pedals and a Hurst cueball sticking out of the floor.

I've driven one of those old Beetle "autostick" things and I agree, they were very weird to drive. I also drove an early-'80s Civic that had a TC automatic but you still were supposed to tell it when to shift with the lever. That was odd too.

Bought the missus an Audi A3 DSG Turbo. Dual clutches operating two shafts. That transmission will obsolete all other designs.

Works flawlessly in both "automatic" and "manual" modes.

The line between transmission types gets more blurry every day. So yeah, the word standard doesn't mean much these days. The lowest common denominator between transmission types (regardless of what you call them) is whether the design is equipped with a clutch(es) or a torque converter.

The DSG in my wife's A3 is a dual clutch mechatronic manual. No torque converter.

The 4L60E in my 68 Camaro is a manumatic. It has a torque converter. A lock up clutch is present, but primary power transfer is by way of a 3 element fluid coupling.

Both designs are run by electronics.

NYG95GA wrote: How many of you have never used a "Three on the tree" There's a lot of older folks on here that probably learned how to drive with this shifter, but I'm betting some of the younger folks won't have a clue as to what it is Hope I'm wrong.

first car I ever drove actually had "four on the tree" An early 60's Simca....

don't know exactly which model or yr

later there was a 50 Plymouth,a 59 nine passenger Ford wagon (3 on the tree, manual brakes, and manual steering wow) 64 Valiant , mid 60's Chevy pickup, 51 Plymouth, I'm sure there were more but I'm having a bad case of CRS this morning...

With the way transmissions are going we will soon be referring to a row your own gearbox (how I refer to a proper manual) as a three petal, non-sequential, H pattern, gearbox

In reply to Duke:

Uhh, no cables in a column shift.

It uses linkage rods just like a floor shifter ('cause it's the same transmission)

Cable shifted manual transmissions are a perversion forced upon us by front-drive cars.

Shawn

Manual on the column = three or for on the tree

Manual on the floor = dogleg (look how the shifter's bent, like a dog's leg)

Automatic of any perversion = slushbox.

In reply to Jensenman:

I thought a Dogleg was a specific shift pattern rather than another name for a manual on the floor. However it is on the floor so maybe it's one of those 'all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares' things.

I think you're right Carson. I thought dogleg referred to a manual in which first gear hangs off the normal H something like:

 1   2   4
     3   5    R

or

      2    4    R
 1    3    5

I've heard 'dogleg' used to describe the shift pattern as well. All the olde tyme sales managers used the descriptions I posted.

mad_machine wrote: never seen one with 1st and second side by side.. seen them with first towards you and down.. with 2nd through to the top gear in the normal positions. I actually prefer that pattern

Oh yeah, I must be having shifter dyslexia. 1st beside 3rd is a dogleg. My bad,

Getrag Dogleg. IIRC, this is the one on the E30 M3

I've heard that called the "racing H" - 1st down and out of the way, 2-5 in a normal H