When I was teen in the 60’s my brother bought a small bottle of mercury from the neighborhood drug store. We enjoyed playing with it. We liked to drop some on the floor and watch it burst into little beads and go everywhere. We also liked to shine pennys with it.
I love the science lesson given in impeccable English as part of the overall advertisement for Chevy. Those times, those people are now gone. Lost, like tears in rain.
I remember when those gear shifts on the steering column would wear out you could by a "Hurst" floor shift for about $40.00 at a K Mart or an Advance Auto and replace it . Had to saw a hole on the floor and most transmissions had the bolt holes . Just hook up the linkage and it usually worked great .
My buddy bought a "somewhat" complete '57 Nomad project car (back in the 80's). The previous owner did just what you mentioned- ripped off the column shifter & cut a hole in the floor, even though he left the 3-speed trans in. He also didn't want the factory bench seat. He stuck in bucket seats. My buddy found the correct column shift lever & cut out the hump of a junk '57 & welded the 'patch' back into the floor. Last time I spoke to him, he was still trying to locate the correct bench seat, which was ONLY for the Nomad & ONLY for the '57!
A friend of mine restored a 39 Chev a long time ago which had vacuum shift when new. During WW2 it was requisitioned by the US army ,whose engineers removed the vacuum shift and fitted a regular floor shift cover on the trans. When returned to it's owner at the end of the war it retained the floor shift. Obviously the military engineers felt it was an over complicated device that wasn't necessary.
Chevy made trucks in column shift until the mid 80's. The linkage is much longer though and can lock up. I can see why the military wouldn't want such a system.
@@redtra236 Foreign taxis, where they needed a front bench seat, were the last. Mercedes sold an E-Class with 4-speed column shift 1996, the Toyota Crown Comfort had a 5-speed column shift till 1999.
@Bohappenstance Click It's still more complicated and more prone to failure though even if you're went that long without major issues. I don't think it's a bad design but I can see why the military mostly went with floor shifts.
Does anybody else get bummed out watching these old videos, knowing that most of the people featured in them are either dead or old😩 life is too short.
That kid at the end was probably a couple of years old, making him close to 85 years old now, if still living. My bet is everyone has passed on by now.
Never thought of that...I think about how these seem like better educational material than what we get nowadays... it feels like our education system has shifted and is now failing us
The change from a floor shift to a column shift was mainly for passenger comfort. It meant you could have three passengers in the front seat or a driver with a close friend seated together.
The only vacuum shift car I remember was my '68 "automatic" VW bug. When you pressed slightly on the shifter, a vacuum device engaged the clutch instead of using a clutch pedal. Yeah, it sucked.
I had a 67 floor shifter. Always wondered if that Auto Stickshift system worked well. Did you mean it sucked as in it was bad, or that it sucked as in, it uses vacuum?
Vacuum power was in the public discourse back then. There were even proposals to to make a trans-Atlantic vacuum tube to propel people-carrying pods across the ocean.
I think this is for 2 reasons: 1) the tech today that's being explained is way more advanced and a lot more abstract (not physical, mechanical stuff you can see and feel) 2) A lot of the times these folks were made for people who may have only received a 3rd grade education before they had to help on the farm or start working in the factory. They're made for people who are assumed to be much less educated. This was legit a problem in WW2, and you'll notice that a lot of the time the educational films for the military will pause for weirdly-long periods of time (by today's standards) whenever there is text on screen to give the people watching, _who may actually be almost illiterate,_ time to sound out the words, if they need to, and keep up. Doesn't mean that these films aren't great. They're fantastic for explaining basic, universal, timeless concepts precisely because they are intentionally made to be as simple as possible. And also because a lot of the times they will explain the same thing over and over in different ways to cast as wide a net as possible. The one thing I think has been lost with 3D modeling is when they build actual, physical models of what they're demonstrating right in front of you, which really helps to make these concepts seem real.
@@Kevin-jb2pv I instruct people on concrete placement and testing, basic engineering principles and construction techniques. These people range from every level of education and they all understand what I’m saying because I put it in basic and tangible terms. A more technical question gets an answer, but without solid basics people get confused. But I also understand your point. Perhaps presentations should be presented as basic as possible no matter how complex the subject matter, unless you know the education level of your audience. What I’m referring to are presentations for example, about lawn mower repair. Watch a film from the 1950’s vs a TH-cam presentation today. One is very concise and full of information, that being the one from the 1950’s. The newer one is often rushed and assumes that the audience knows more than they do. Just my opinion. Thanks for the comment.
I remember when the wipers used to be vacuum operated. They worked well until the car was going up a hill, and the vacuum was low, and the wipers almost quit working. How things have changed.
I remember when the wipers used to be vacuum operated. They worked well until the car was going up a hill, and the vacuum was low, and the wipers almost quit working. How things have changed. Going downhill, your wipers would redline until you reached level ground.
My late father talked about the vacuum shift going out on his late 30's Chevrolet. He bought a full manual shift linkage conversion kit. But then he discovered oil ports in the vacuum shift assembly. A few drops of oil and the vacuum shift came back to life. The conversion kit went to the junk yard in 1963.
I remember the coal furnace cleaners , a good number of the chimney sweep companys also offered the service. I used to watch them when I was a kid . I saw a patch blow off a bag once boy o boy what a mess ..
It's fun to watch these early developments. The engineering was great. But, the execution with assembly line issues and lack of really precise consistency made a lot of this very troublesome. Still, it's super interesting to see how engineering overcame these issues.
What are you saying, where did you uncover that pathetic attempt of research. Do you kids hear the things you type at a mental level, or is that your freeforall to educational matters to spew false lies however and whenever you can. Why can't it be both, why do all of you always say the same damn thing "well they look nice, but work not well". They were extremely precise, and had multiple educational pieces you would watch through, measurements of science to the very millionth of a centimeter were put in correct place to mark precisely whereas something is pinpointed to, hell atompointed toward.
It says a lot about today's attention spans compared to back then that they didn't even mention their brand or even cars or their invention until more than five minutes of video had passed.
It's easy to completely hold someone's attention for as long as you like when they have to sit in a blacked out room/ theater with no cell phones. Also, I think people overestimate how often people just completely zoned out during these types of films whenever the topic was something they had no interest in.
+dstarks80 Yeah, we wouldn't need those for another 30 years. Did you notice this car had emergency brakes ? We no longer have those either, they're now parking brakes. Whatever, they never did work in emergencies any how.
My '52 Plymouth had a true E-brake. It was a brake that squeezed the drive shaft to stop the car. It saved my butt at least once in the hills of Dubuque. Those were the days of single chamber master cylinders.
Over 45 years of working on cars and I've never once seen this system on one. Lots of other vacuum controlled things though, like cruise control, power brakes, automatic transmission shift firmness, headlight covers and even windshield wiper motors.
My mom had vacuum wipers on her 60 Mercury Comet. Crapiest set up I've ever seen. You're waiting at a stop light & the wipers are going 240. Step on the accelerator & they'd slow to a snail's pace! After 8 years of this, my mom asked my dad to get her a new car
I didn't know about those giant post office vacuum tubes. Smaller versions used to be used in department stores and some offices. Chevrolet used vacuum shifters from 1937 or so until 1948. The system often didn't work right though and was dropped after that. But cars since the 1960's (Chryslers then anyway) have used vacuum to open doors directing air in heating/ventilation systems instead of a manual lever.
You find out how involved when your tree breaks and it's back to the floor. All I had was 2nd and reverse. I could drive, but only about 30mph, until JCWhitney came to my rescue.
Those were cool. My gramps had that exact model station wagon. It also had the speedometer which filled up columns in red like liquid filling up little cups. The push buttons were a little awkward to reach though, did it seem to you?
This worked great until the seals wore, or the air filter got plugged or failed and allowed grit into the system, or in the winter moisture got in and froze. You could buy a kit to eliminate the vacuum cylender, which I did. Three on the tree was initally an option, at extra cost, then standard from about 1939. About 1960 floor mounted "stick shift" became an optional extra. Such is progress.
David Clark Same here. I had a '41 with vacumn shift. It leaked and didn't work well at all. My dad converted it to straight linkage for me. He said those vacuum shift canisters were a problem practically from new.
Awesome video! Note at the end how the announcer touts "greater safety for all" as mommy puts little junior in the front seat! Today mommy would be cited and maybe charged with child endangerment.
I was thinking the same thing as they tossed junior onto the bench seat. They didn't even have seatbelts back then, but moving the shifter off of the floor made it a safer car for the little ones! Thank you Ralph for fighting to save us from ourselves.
I wonder how many things people 85 years from now will mock and condemn us for. Probably alot. But we'll be dead so it won't bother us, just like people in 1935 don't give a rats arse what we think either.
My old pick-up had three-on-the-tree ... I don't think any young person would even know what to do now-a-days. It's getting to where my 6-speed Acura at the car wash, only the "old guys" can pull it onto the rack. Most young people never drove a stick.
Considering I've only driven automatic, this is the part which I have no experience of. Still, it is useful to better understand the shifting that is automatically done for me
Wow I learned more in this 11 minute video than I did in 11 years of school i definitely didn't know that is how lightning is formed and the air pressure above and below the wings. I learn so much from these videos it amazes me how much smarter people were back then and how much they knew and how stupid people have become in such a short time and back then they didn't have the answer to pretty much anything they would ever need to know in there hand or pocket as we do now
Great memories -- I remember my dad's 1947 Chevy and him telling me that it had vacuum shift, which was a great improvement over his older Chevy. The gear shift on the column has now re-appeared in the form of the paddle shift. There is nothing new under the sun.
Yea man... Anytime you see something new theres a good chance its been around but due to engineering limitations or metallurgy it isnt reliable. 4 valves per cylinder and water injection are 2 that popped in my mind. 4 valves might go back to the teens, its from the 20s at the minimum and water injection came about in the 30s.
***** Very widepread. To some extent it was superseded by the automatic transmission. But on the one hand, American cars would have levers for automatic transmission shaped just like this gear lever for many decades. On the other hand the power brakes that would soon be standard in American cars and later also in European cars work by the same principle as this power shifter. They use the sucking power ("Saugkraft") of the engine. Also: such a shifting lever was in the Trabant, the one car of the GDR, German Democratic Republic. Although: the lever was longer. I'm not sure whether they used this power system.
In later years they did away with vacuum assist on 3 on the tree setups. It was funny to hear them say " better safety for all" while putting a toddler in the front with no seat belts and metal everywhere
As I understand it, when the engine stalled, it was almost impossible to move the shift lever. This was one idea that was interesting, but didn't make much sense, especially once Hydra-Matic and Powerglide were offered...
6:01 - "...the most accessible, convenient position: Right alongside the steering wheel." And then for some dumb reason auto makers eventually forgot this and moved the thing back to the floor where it could be in the way all over again...
Then back to the floor was actually easier and more ergonomic, my current VW Golf R Manual stick of course 6 speed on the floor! 3 on the tree is where i learned how to drive
I wish the column shifter didn't have to phase away like it is doing now. I really like that shifter. It died with manual transmissions and now Automatic is phasing away : (
I wish they would have left the headlight dimmer on the floor. It is much more convenient and safer to adjust headlight beams with your foot than with your left hand, that has to remain in basically the same position on the steering wheel to instantly deflect your headlight beam when approaching an on-coming car. The "button" on the left side of the floor was a better idea.
I totally agree. When I was a kid they called the stick mount Euro-style. I guess it made your Pontiac feel like a BMW. Then the Japanese decided everything but the hazards should be on a stick or on your steering wheel...I hate it. My dimmer went out on my old 78 k20, and it cost $6 and took me five minutes to replace. I miss it.
Yeah the truck I drive is on the floor. Much better design I see no reason for it to have been moved to the column. On most newer vehicles its the same lever as the turn signal which can result in you accidentally activating your signal.
Good luck finding the floor high beam switch _IN THE DARK!!_ Or you have to hover your foot over it instead of resting it on the (probably non existent) dead pedal. No.. the Japanese made vehicle controls the right way from the beginning... all lights on the left stalk, all wipers on the right stalk. Easy to find. and don’t have to take your hands off the steering wheel to operate them. And the proof is how many times American manufacturers changed their layouts until almost universally they follow the Japanese method starting in the early 90s.
Much prefer the gearshift on the floor where the gods intended it to be. I’ve driven a column mount manual Maverick (back when they were cars, not the pretender pickup) back in the late ‘70s and didn’t care for it in the least.
Fewer and fewer cars today are even using vacuum control, everything is electronic. It can help lower costs and gives a greater amount of control, but electronics are always the part of the car that goes first.
@@hotrodray9884 I'm not saying computers aren't the reasonable choice, just that I appreciate the engineering that went into mechanical engine control more. Like why I prefer carburetor to efi.
10:40 "... and GREATER SAFETY for all". What a way to close off. They wanted to show that a child could now sit right next to the driver and not interfere with the gear-shifting or the park-brake lever. How ironic that they used those words to close off. A Jam Handy Production.
That far advanced in shifting, but still using knee action shocks in 1938, I guess it's better than friction shocks I guess, but changes will be comming, especially after the war years,
5:09, dumps mail all over floor. This is why I never get my mail, probably still on the floor at this place. 6:03, first shift clocks passenger in head.
Sorry but now you can only enter driver seat from it side, in 2015 most manual car put the shift stick back again to the floor, and now most car have center console storage to put your drinks and other things,
Marin M-130 The Boeing 314 was much larger and didn’t have externally braced wings and sponsons. Both were used by Pan Am for trans Atlantic and trans Pacific airline service.
I hope it worked better than those vacuum windshield wiper motors. The idea must not have lasted very long. I started my career as a mechanic in the sixties and have never seen a standard transmission car with that technology.
@@MAGnetICus_Attractus Rudolf Caracciola's record of 432.7 km/h (268 mph) over the flying kilometre on 28 January 1938, remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken on 5 November 2017 by Koenigsegg. Production car - Duesenberg Model SJ, debuted in 1932 could do 140mph, a special one-off called the Mormon Meteor wound up topping 170mph, and held the record for highest average speed over a 24-hour period until 1990.
And I wonder what snarky judgments people 85 years from now will make about us. Fortunately we'll be dead so they'll be able to mock all they want and it won't bother us.
Gotta love the guy handling a crap ton of mercury with his bare hands.
Jared Connell It can be absorbed by your skin.
Check out Cody's Lab.
Matt Bowen only if it's injured. Your skin itself won't do that
played with it all the time circa 1950
When I was teen in the 60’s my brother bought a small bottle of mercury from the neighborhood drug store. We enjoyed playing with it. We liked to drop some on the floor and watch it burst into little beads and go everywhere. We also liked to shine pennys with it.
I love the science lesson given in impeccable English as part of the overall advertisement for Chevy. Those times, those people are now gone. Lost, like tears in rain.
I wonder if it was because they were selling to a trained audience returning from the war.
And baby-boomers fuck this all up (not everyone it’s just the overall generation even though there are still positive things about it)
Impeccable english but with angry tone.
@@pierremorin5397 "Angry" or simply authoritative?
@@pierremorin5397 It does not sound angry to me, just more forceful.
Vacu-um
Eff-fort
Gotta love those careful and deliberate pronunciations.
proper American english
now lets tauk abut tars
I love the guy sucking on a cigar to demonstrate vacuum. Politically incorrect now.
"Greater safety for all."
As they place an unsecured child in the front seat.
How times have changed.
You stole my comment Sir ! :)
Well, it _was_ greater safety than the unsecured child in the front seat entering the car on the side close to traffic 😛
It was! Now we are all in danger from wimpy, whiney, grown up babies! The, they, them crowd!🙄
lmao
And the lab guy handles mercury with his bare hands. We had chads back then
Tip for headphone users: pull the jack slightly out of the socket to hear in both ears.
I am using bluetooth headphones ;(
I saw this comment only after watching the whole video😢
Switch receiver to "mono" mode.
Cool actually works
Thanks, it works
The innovative thinking to place the shifter on the steering column! We couldn't wait to buy a Hurst shifter and put it back on the floor!😲
I remember when those gear shifts on the steering column would wear out you could by a "Hurst" floor shift for about $40.00 at a K Mart or an Advance Auto and replace it .
Had to saw a hole on the floor and most transmissions had the bolt holes . Just hook up the linkage and it usually worked great .
Still can buy them new for some transmissions but not all of them .
My buddy bought a "somewhat" complete '57 Nomad project car (back in the 80's). The previous owner did just what you mentioned- ripped off the column shifter & cut a hole in the floor, even though he left the 3-speed trans in. He also didn't want the factory bench seat. He stuck in bucket seats. My buddy found the correct column shift lever & cut out the hump of a junk '57 & welded the 'patch' back into the floor. Last time I spoke to him, he was still trying to locate the correct bench seat, which was ONLY for the Nomad & ONLY for the '57!
Pepperidge Farm remembers.🫡
My right ear stills knows nothing about vacuum control.
You have your headphones the wrong way
Its not stereo bruh. Just mono
woosh?
@@thechosenone8466
Mono can also play in both audio channels if people uploading know what they're doing.
WTF I HAD ONE EAR OFF ON MY HEADPHONES I JUST GOT SO FREAKED OUT but then I realized the mono sound -_-
A friend of mine restored a 39 Chev a long time ago which had vacuum shift when new. During WW2 it was requisitioned by the US army ,whose engineers removed the vacuum shift and fitted a regular floor shift cover on the trans. When returned to it's owner at the end of the war it retained the floor shift. Obviously the military engineers felt it was an over complicated device that wasn't necessary.
I'm going to assume that's why column shift didn't make it past the 70s, amazing it made it that far.
Chevy made trucks in column shift until the mid 80's. The linkage is much longer though and can lock up. I can see why the military wouldn't want such a system.
@@redtra236 Foreign taxis, where they needed a front bench seat, were the last. Mercedes sold an E-Class with 4-speed column shift 1996, the Toyota Crown Comfort had a 5-speed column shift till 1999.
@Bohappenstance Click It's still more complicated and more prone to failure though even if you're went that long without major issues. I don't think it's a bad design but I can see why the military mostly went with floor shifts.
Does anybody else get bummed out watching these old videos, knowing that most of the people featured in them are either dead or old😩 life is too short.
That kid at the end was probably a couple of years old, making him close to 85 years old now, if still living. My bet is everyone has passed on by now.
Never thought of that...I think about how these seem like better educational material than what we get nowadays... it feels like our education system has shifted and is now failing us
So nice to watch old video clips.
Be happy to be alive for now. Our turn to die will come like any person on earth.
@Muckin 4on yeah its so true...
These old film clips do a great job explaining the basics about cars.
The change from a floor shift to a column shift was mainly for passenger comfort. It meant you could have three passengers in the front seat or a driver with a close friend seated together.
Close friend lol.🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Yeah, stops your 'close friend' from accidentally deepthorating the shift lever at night.
The only vacuum shift car I remember was my '68 "automatic" VW bug. When you pressed slightly on the shifter, a vacuum device engaged the clutch instead of using a clutch pedal. Yeah, it sucked.
I had a 67 floor shifter. Always wondered if that Auto Stickshift system worked well. Did you mean it sucked as in it was bad, or that it sucked as in, it uses vacuum?
A real vw bug with automatic anything... well that's Witchcraft
**rimshot** 🥁
I never understood why they need the bug with an automatic transmission. It’s was just wrong.
Vacuum power was in the public discourse back then. There were even proposals to to make a trans-Atlantic vacuum tube to propel people-carrying pods across the ocean.
You can learn a lot from these early presentations.
Newer presentations are often confusing.
Yes very much confusing
I think this is for 2 reasons:
1) the tech today that's being explained is way more advanced and a lot more abstract (not physical, mechanical stuff you can see and feel)
2) A lot of the times these folks were made for people who may have only received a 3rd grade education before they had to help on the farm or start working in the factory. They're made for people who are assumed to be much less educated. This was legit a problem in WW2, and you'll notice that a lot of the time the educational films for the military will pause for weirdly-long periods of time (by today's standards) whenever there is text on screen to give the people watching, _who may actually be almost illiterate,_ time to sound out the words, if they need to, and keep up.
Doesn't mean that these films aren't great. They're fantastic for explaining basic, universal, timeless concepts precisely because they are intentionally made to be as simple as possible. And also because a lot of the times they will explain the same thing over and over in different ways to cast as wide a net as possible. The one thing I think has been lost with 3D modeling is when they build actual, physical models of what they're demonstrating right in front of you, which really helps to make these concepts seem real.
@@Kevin-jb2pv
I instruct people on concrete placement and testing, basic engineering principles and construction techniques. These people range from every level of education and they all understand what I’m saying because I put it in basic and tangible terms. A more technical question gets an answer, but without solid basics people get confused.
But I also understand your point.
Perhaps presentations should be presented as basic as possible no matter how complex the subject matter, unless you know the education level of your audience.
What I’m referring to are presentations for example, about lawn mower repair.
Watch a film from the 1950’s vs a TH-cam presentation today. One is very concise and full of information, that being the one from the 1950’s. The newer one is often rushed and assumes that the audience knows more than they do.
Just my opinion. Thanks for the comment.
I remember when the wipers used to be vacuum operated. They worked well until the car was going up a hill, and the vacuum was low, and the wipers almost quit working. How things have changed.
me too Rob...
The good old days, coming to a stop and your wipers do to.
GM ....LOL
@Casey Russel... only if you have an intake leak. Cars produce most vacuum at idle.
I remember when the wipers used to be vacuum operated. They worked well until the car was going up a hill, and the vacuum was low, and the wipers almost quit working. How things have changed.
Going downhill, your wipers would redline until you reached level ground.
That vacuum assist shifter was offered by Chevrolet in 1939, it cost $10
Wow! 10 bucks was worth a lot back then
A good amount of $$ for the time!
My late father talked about the vacuum shift going out on his late 30's Chevrolet. He bought a full manual shift linkage conversion kit. But then he discovered oil ports in the vacuum shift assembly. A few drops of oil and the vacuum shift came back to life. The conversion kit went to the junk yard in 1963.
If he only had Google or TH-cam he could have found the answer.
Old information but still on point. You learn something from these videos all the time. Thanks. Amazing the effort that went into these videos.
I remember the coal furnace cleaners , a good number of the chimney sweep companys also offered the service. I used to watch them when I was a kid . I saw a patch blow off a bag once boy o boy what a mess ..
My left ear loved this video
me too, I think my right speaker cable on headphone broken
My right one missed it all
Use the audio in mono
I write this to later xD (if i write bad i am sorry)
Nowadays "a flip of the finger " while driving usually means something else.....
The middle finger
Bruuh
LOL!!!!!!!!
Oh, I appreciate my amp's mono mode more now
Love these old videos. These are so interesting.
It's fun to watch these early developments. The engineering was great. But, the execution with assembly line issues and lack of really precise consistency made a lot of this very troublesome. Still, it's super interesting to see how engineering overcame these issues.
What are you saying, where did you uncover that pathetic attempt of research. Do you kids hear the things you type at a mental level, or is that your freeforall to educational matters to spew false lies however and whenever you can. Why can't it be both, why do all of you always say the same damn thing "well they look nice, but work not well". They were extremely precise, and had multiple educational pieces you would watch through, measurements of science to the very millionth of a centimeter were put in correct place to mark precisely whereas something is pinpointed to, hell atompointed toward.
I agree. A lot of "old ideas" are still good ideas.
Thanks for finding this old film footage ( video ) really cool how this was explained.
It says a lot about today's attention spans compared to back then that they didn't even mention their brand or even cars or their invention until more than five minutes of video had passed.
It says absolutely nothing about attention spans.
Go listen to a 30 second radio spot from the era.
It's easy to completely hold someone's attention for as long as you like when they have to sit in a blacked out room/ theater with no cell phones. Also, I think people overestimate how often people just completely zoned out during these types of films whenever the topic was something they had no interest in.
Didn't need child safety seats or seatbelts back in 1938.
dstarks80 Nah, let them die, we'll just have more kids. : P
+dstarks80 Yeah, we wouldn't need those for another 30 years. Did you notice this car had emergency brakes ? We no longer have those either, they're now parking brakes. Whatever, they never did work in emergencies any how.
My '52 Plymouth had a true E-brake. It was a brake that squeezed the drive shaft to stop the car. It saved my butt at least once in the hills of Dubuque. Those were the days of single chamber master cylinders.
Those were the days when you were lucky if you weren't impaled by the steering column in a head on crash
..or don't need safe passenger side access away from traffic in 2018?
Over 45 years of working on cars and I've never once seen this system on one. Lots of other vacuum controlled things though, like cruise control, power brakes, automatic transmission shift firmness, headlight covers and even windshield wiper motors.
My mom had vacuum wipers on her 60 Mercury Comet. Crapiest set up I've ever seen. You're waiting at a stop light & the wipers are going 240. Step on the accelerator & they'd slow to a snail's pace! After 8 years of this, my mom asked my dad to get her a new car
Good footage, clear vision in 1938. Very good.
Very good,in fact outstanding!
I didn't know about those giant post office vacuum tubes. Smaller versions used to be used in department stores and some offices. Chevrolet used vacuum shifters from 1937 or so until 1948. The system often didn't work right though and was dropped after that. But cars since the 1960's (Chryslers then anyway) have used vacuum to open doors directing air in heating/ventilation systems instead of a manual lever.
Motor bank drives at bank and credit union branches still use them.
nice gearbox sir
Wow😳 The handling with such amount of mercury was incredible.
Super... Old is gold
There's more than I thought involved with the old Three on a Tree!!
But.... LESS effOrt involved!! 😜
You find out how involved when your tree breaks and it's back to the floor. All I had was 2nd and reverse. I could drive, but only about 30mph, until JCWhitney came to my rescue.
My first car was a 1960 Plymouth station wagon(in 1990) with push button drive
Those were cool. My gramps had that exact model station wagon. It also had the speedometer which filled up columns in red like liquid filling up little cups. The push buttons were a little awkward to reach though, did it seem to you?
I love these videos....
What the fuck how are these ancient videos so efficiently educational
This worked great until the seals wore, or the air filter got plugged or failed and allowed grit into the system, or in the winter moisture got in and froze. You could buy a kit to eliminate the vacuum cylender, which I did. Three on the tree was initally an option, at extra cost, then standard from about 1939. About 1960 floor mounted "stick shift" became an optional extra. Such is progress.
I had a 42 Chevy which had been converted to a mechanical clutch , from vacuum. It had a three on the tree and it never seemed hard to shift, to me.
David Clark Same here. I had a '41 with vacumn shift. It leaked and didn't work well at all. My dad converted it to straight linkage for me. He said those vacuum shift canisters were a problem practically from new.
Thanks!!
Awesome video! Note at the end how the announcer touts "greater safety for all" as mommy puts little junior in the front seat! Today mommy would be cited and maybe charged with child endangerment.
Then again, there were fewer cars, lower speeds and generally less driving anyways back then.
I was thinking the same thing as they tossed junior onto the bench seat. They didn't even have seatbelts back then, but moving the shifter off of the floor made it a safer car for the little ones!
Thank you Ralph for fighting to save us from ourselves.
That's because the government has become a nanny state and is out of control.
Don’t forget crucified by the media
I wonder how many things people 85 years from now will mock and condemn us for. Probably alot. But we'll be dead so it won't bother us, just like people in 1935 don't give a rats arse what we think either.
3 on the tree!
My old pick-up had three-on-the-tree ... I don't think any young person would even know what to do now-a-days.
It's getting to where my 6-speed Acura at the car wash, only the "old guys" can pull it onto the rack. Most young people never drove a stick.
I am impressed
That was some vacuum cleaner.
You won't see people playing with copious amounts of mercury like that now days. Wow!
Considering I've only driven automatic, this is the part which I have no experience of. Still, it is useful to better understand the shifting that is automatically done for me
Using and controlling air pressure to produce work is known as pneumatics. Using fluids in the same manner is known as hydraulics. 👍🏻😉
los que pusieron dislike a estas obras maestras bien explicadas, no deben saber inglés no veo otra razón.
Yep, they had vacuum control gear shifts back in 1938, but audio on the right side bewildered them
Mono sound. There was only one speaker or bullhorn.
Wow I learned more in this 11 minute video than I did in 11 years of school i definitely didn't know that is how lightning is formed and the air pressure above and below the wings. I learn so much from these videos it amazes me how much smarter people were back then and how much they knew and how stupid people have become in such a short time and back then they didn't have the answer to pretty much anything they would ever need to know in there hand or pocket as we do now
Great memories -- I remember my dad's 1947 Chevy and him telling me that it had vacuum shift, which was a great improvement over his older Chevy.
The gear shift on the column has now re-appeared in the form of the paddle shift. There is nothing new under the sun.
Yea man... Anytime you see something new theres a good chance its been around but due to engineering limitations or metallurgy it isnt reliable.
4 valves per cylinder and water injection are 2 that popped in my mind.
4 valves might go back to the teens, its from the 20s at the minimum and water injection came about in the 30s.
electrical....
more crap to ruin a car in 7 yrs.
Did it still have a clutch pedal?
@@MisterMikeTexas Yes
Back when learning was made cool. I'm still amazed at what these people accomplished with next to nothing.
They were sure trying to use all kinds of gearshift and clutch tricks in the thirties. Semi-automatic transmissions had somehting like this as well.
1938年当時に、これだけの解説番組を制作したアメリカが如何に偉大な国だとわかります。
And now we've began making your car a nightmare to work on. 😃 It's cool seeing their thought processes though.
*****
Very widepread.
To some extent it was superseded by the automatic transmission. But on the one hand, American cars would have levers for automatic transmission shaped just like this gear lever for many decades. On the other hand the power brakes that would soon be standard in American cars and later also in European cars work by the same principle as this power shifter. They use the sucking power ("Saugkraft") of the engine.
Also: such a shifting lever was in the Trabant, the one car of the GDR, German Democratic Republic. Although: the lever was longer. I'm not sure whether they used this power system.
Ok sir
In later years they did away with vacuum assist on 3 on the tree setups. It was funny to hear them say " better safety for all" while putting a toddler in the front with no seat belts and metal everywhere
I didn't know post was sent with vacuum-tubes. Although email is better, and I don't mind waiting a couple of days for my packages.
Just put the dang shift lever on the floor! Geeze
John Paul Sartorius exactly
My 38 was last year of floor stick, shifts with ease.
Install a Lenco and be done with it.
I would rather have a short-throw floor shift than all this garbage that is designed to wear out. This is the first of planned obsolescence.
3 on the tree was the new hotness
As I understand it, when the engine stalled, it was almost impossible to move the shift lever. This was one idea that was interesting, but didn't make much sense, especially once Hydra-Matic and Powerglide were offered...
I agree.
6:01 - "...the most accessible, convenient position: Right alongside the steering wheel."
And then for some dumb reason auto makers eventually forgot this and moved the thing back to the floor where it could be in the way all over again...
They also had vacuum operated windshield wipers for a few years.
Perfect vacuum. Sounds like a Democrats head.
The vacuum operated wipers were a headache when you tried to climb a tall hill during a storm.
power steering really changed our lives
Then back to the floor was actually easier and more ergonomic, my current VW Golf R Manual stick of course 6 speed on the floor! 3 on the tree is where i learned how to drive
Looks like one of those missing links between things like the Hydra Matic, Reo's Self Shifter and Hudson's Drive Master.
This is when chevy had real engineering and were pioneers to many automotive features or made it better!
Wish Chevy still cared about its buyers like this great explanation video. now Chevy now, quite frankly, doesn't give a damn.
They never cared about anything but your dollars.
They invented planned obsolescence so you’d throw away your perfectly good car and buy a new one.
I wish they cared about quality still.
I wish the column shifter didn't have to phase away like it is doing now. I really like that shifter. It died with manual transmissions and now Automatic is phasing away : (
And that is how we chat each other
Rods and plungers and gears!!! Oh my! 😲
"Vacu-ohm"
"eff-ohrt"
What a time
Very interesting transmission. But the car of video is a 1939 Chevrolet.
I wish they would have left the headlight dimmer on the floor. It is much more convenient and safer to adjust headlight beams with your foot than with your left hand, that has to remain in basically the same position on the steering wheel to instantly deflect your headlight beam when approaching an on-coming car. The "button" on the left side of the floor was a better idea.
I totally agree. When I was a kid they called the stick mount Euro-style. I guess it made your Pontiac feel like a BMW. Then the Japanese decided everything but the hazards should be on a stick or on your steering wheel...I hate it. My dimmer went out on my old 78 k20, and it cost $6 and took me five minutes to replace. I miss it.
Yeah, but my wife could never reach the floor dimmer. Ha...
Yeah the truck I drive is on the floor. Much better design I see no reason for it to have been moved to the column. On most newer vehicles its the same lever as the turn signal which can result in you accidentally activating your signal.
Good luck finding the floor high beam switch _IN THE DARK!!_
Or you have to hover your foot over it instead of resting it on the (probably non existent) dead pedal.
No.. the Japanese made vehicle controls the right way from the beginning... all lights on the left stalk, all wipers on the right stalk. Easy to find. and don’t have to take your hands off the steering wheel to operate them.
And the proof is how many times American manufacturers changed their layouts until almost universally they follow the Japanese method starting in the early 90s.
Mind blowing genius creation
And how widespread got this invention actually?
9:45 - No 'flip of the finger there' - that lady had to muscle it into second!
The shifter on top of the transmission is just way to simple. Lets see if we can complicate the hell out of this thing.
Lady all in a tangle at 5.25!
Much prefer the gearshift on the floor where the gods intended it to be. I’ve driven a column mount manual Maverick (back when they were cars, not the pretender pickup) back in the late ‘70s and didn’t care for it in the least.
Was this shown in the TVs or was this a video for attracting investors?
7:45: 3 on the tree. My papaw taught me yo drive. On thid type of manual transmission.
bench seating is a safety feature bring it back
Fewer and fewer cars today are even using vacuum control, everything is electronic. It can help lower costs and gives a greater amount of control, but electronics are always the part of the car that goes first.
today vacuum is out because LEAKS screw with the computer and emissions
@@hotrodray9884 I'm not saying computers aren't the reasonable choice, just that I appreciate the engineering that went into mechanical engine control more. Like why I prefer carburetor to efi.
Yep, and millions of cars and trucks are sitting in manufacturer storage yards waiting for electronic brains which are in short supply right now.
10:40 "... and GREATER SAFETY for all". What a way to close off. They wanted to show that a child could now sit right next to the driver and not interfere with the gear-shifting or the park-brake lever. How ironic that they used those words to close off. A Jam Handy Production.
That far advanced in shifting, but still using knee action shocks in 1938, I guess it's better than friction shocks I guess, but changes will be comming, especially after the war years,
5:09, dumps mail all over floor. This is why I never get my mail, probably still on the floor at this place.
6:03, first shift clocks passenger in head.
Problem is column shift has way more parts , has a lot of flex , not NEARLY as direct.
Seems like a real Rube Goldberg system. I'll stick with the floor shift.
Jam Handy to the rescue
Sorry but now you can only enter driver seat from it side, in 2015 most manual car put the shift stick back again to the floor, and now most car have center console storage to put your drinks and other things,
What plane is that
Boeing 314
Marin M-130
The Boeing 314 was much larger and didn’t have externally braced wings and sponsons.
Both were used by Pan Am for trans Atlantic and trans Pacific airline service.
I hope it worked better than those vacuum windshield wiper motors. The idea must not have lasted very long. I started my career as a mechanic in the sixties and have never seen a standard transmission car with that technology.
Was it only on the movies or did people really see only in black and white outside the movies too during those days?
Yeah the whole world was black and white. Nobody knew what color was until Kodak painted everything in color.
Greater safety for all...except for the toddler in the front seat with no car seat or seat belt.
Back then toddlers were made mostly of lead.
Not less secure than the adults.
And the top speed of a car in 1938 was what?
@@MAGnetICus_Attractus Rudolf Caracciola's record of 432.7 km/h (268 mph) over the flying kilometre on 28 January 1938, remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken on 5 November 2017 by Koenigsegg. Production car - Duesenberg Model SJ, debuted in 1932 could do 140mph, a special one-off called the Mormon Meteor wound up topping 170mph, and held the record for highest average speed over a 24-hour period until 1990.
And I wonder what snarky judgments people 85 years from now will make about us. Fortunately we'll be dead so they'll be able to mock all they want and it won't bother us.
Who is the speaker?? Same in all videos.
Some random dude that probably died more than half a century ago
No tiene audio