1961 Chrysler Newport with standard 3-speed floor shift
(first posted 12/9/2017) As a rather curious corollary to Chrysler’s very space-age push-button automatic, whose demise was covered here by Jim Cavanaugh, Chrysler saw fit to provide only a retrograde 1930s-style floor shifter for the standard three-speed manual transmission on their cars from 1961 through 1964. And we’re talking Chrysler-brand cars, not the low-end big Plymouths and Dodges (except the Chrysler-based Dodge Custom 880). Chrysler was working hard these years to cultivate their odd-ball image.
I came to this shocking revelation as a tender lad of eleven when some friends of ours in Iowa City bought a big new 1964 Dodge Custom 880 wagon. It was black; a stripper with dog dish hubcaps and blackwall tires.
1962 Custom 880 missing its shifter ball
The first time Mrs. Way picked some of us up after school to take us to orchestra practice, the passenger side door was open when I walked up to it. Holy Highland Park! I was shocked to see a curved floor shifter with a black ball right close to the seat cushion. I was blown away, as that was the last thing I had expected. In fact, I was quite confused. I hadn’t seen a 3-speed floor shifter in a big American car ever, except maybe some ancient relics from the 30s I might have seen somewhere. And this, from the company that made a big thing out of their push-button automatic transmission shifters?
Speaking of, this is how the push-button shifter looked when blanked out, when the TorqueFlite was not installed.
Realistically, that did not happen often, but starting in 1961, Chrysler moved downmarket with their Newport. And one of the ways they lowered the price was to make the Torqueflite optional. Actually, the Windsor for ’61 lost standard TF too, although its price didn’t really change from 1960.
It’s hard to find a picture of just the steering column, but this one and the one at the top of this post both show how the highly convex instrument cluster leaves no room on the column for a shifter. Of course, when this was designed, Chrysler had no intention of offering a manual. But then they decided to de-content and compete in a lower price segment.
So this was the rather highly crude solution. The shifter teamed with Chrysler’s new A745 three-speed manual transmission, which arrived in 1961, designed to be used behind the V8s.
For what it’s worth, the 1960 Valiant had a floor shifter for its new A903 three-speed. Undoubtedly Chrysler didn’t want to spend the money to design and build a steering wheel column that could accommodate any kind of shifter, so they kept it cheap and simple, and used a floor shifter. But that went away in 1962, because the Valiant and Lancer almost certainly could then share the same column as used in the new downsized ’62 Plymouth and Dodge, which did have a column-shifted three-speed standard.
The 1963-1964 Chryslers had a new dashboard design, but undoubtedly continued to use the previous steering column, hence the standard floor shifter in these too. Maybe they thought a column shifter would clash with the square wheel?
The Dodge Custom 880 used a dashboard mostly borrowed from the ’61 Dodge Polara and DeSoto. So why doesn’t it have a column shifter since both of those had column shifters? Good question. Presumably it wasn’t worth tooling up the old column again, so the Chrysler unit was used. 1960 and 1961 Plymouth, Dodges and DeSoto used a column that was essentially a carry-over from the ’57-’59s, in term of its column shifter mechanism.
Realistically, the three-speed floor shifter wasn’t probably installed in significant numbers; most likely in low end sedans and wagons like our friends’ 880 wagon, which was pretty spartan inside. And I have vivid memories of Mrs. Way shifting that 361-powered wagon, and no it wasn’t a four speed.
It could have been, though, as in 1964, Chrysler’s new A833 four speed manual was now optional on the 880, with the 383 V8.
And it was also available on the Chryslers too, with “high performance engines”. the fact that it emerges on the floor to the left of the console is a bit odd.
This page in the same brochure rather contradicts the other one, as it says the four speed is only available on the FirePower 305 (383 4 barrel) and 360 (413 single four barrel) engines. Hmm; maybe it wasn’t strong enough yet for the ram-intake 413?
All of this ended in 1965, with the new big C-Body cars, which had a new steering column lever for the automatic transmission. But there’s no mention of a standard three-speed in the ’65 Chrysler brochure? Was it still available? If so, on the tree, undoubtedly. Chrysler was done being weird.
They could’ve at least tooled up a proper blank panel for the TorqueFlite buttons.
Or maybe pioneered face-level air vents* a few years ahead of Ford Europe “(*Deleted when automatic transmission is ordered).”
But seriously, didn’t 3-on-the-floor return in the Aspen/Volare only to disappear forever when they went to K-cars which came with four speeds (which at that point should’ve been five) as standard?
“They could’ve at least tooled up a proper blank panel for the TorqueFlite buttons.”
What, and reward the skinflints who wouldn’t shell out for an automatic in a Chrysler? 🙂
Right. Detroit enjoyed teasing the cheapskates who wouldn’t order, e.g., a radio.
we had a neighbor, a friend’s dad, who put the cheap in cheapskate. He was infamous for doing everything on the cheap, from vacations (Tell the kids they are going to Seaworld, and let them think it’s FL, but it’s really Cleveland, and don’t tell them until they are on the way), phone service (A party line in the mid 70’s!!), and to the cars they drove. His car had a heater and a radio, no A/C until 1975, when he got a stripper Caprice with it. His wife got extreme strippers, with 3 speeds on the column, no radio, and in at least two of them, NO HEATER. They did get some odd looking add on heaters, but she didn’t have a radio until about 1978. I never could figure out where he found these cars. Going from my parent’s cars to theirs was like going to some odd other universe. My parent’s cars were big and loaded. I remember riding in my dad’s ’68 Imperial, and then riding in my friend’s mom’s brand new 1970 Maverick that still had the sticker in the window, with no options, except heater and radio delete. That car got totaled by the oldest son, and it was replaced by a heater only ’71 Comet. An awful green color, she drove it until 1978 when she gave it to the oldest son as he and his wife needed a second car and had no money. Such is the way of a shotgun (Almost literally) marriage, when you knock up your GF at 17, it takes a long time to get rolling financially. 5 kids and 47 years later, they are still together. And dad is still a cheapskate at 90 years old. He buys Kias and complains about all the “gee-gaws” in it.
I knew someone who special ordered a car with no radio…in a brand new Cadillac. He had an AM radio put aside in his garage, I think it came out of some junker of doubtful provenance. He put it into the Cadillac. That probably caused a loss at trade-in time that was more than the savings of the radio deletion.
Back in the 1960’s my great aunt Fan drove a 1959 Chevrolet. I think it was an upmarket Bel Air, because 7 year old me remembers the chrome trim inside the car. I was also fascinated by the shift quadrant: It had “GR” instead of “Low”. Later I found out that this meant her car had TurboGlide, and that GR stood for “Grade Retard”. So it must have been a fairly expensive car when bought new, because TurboGlide cost more than PowerGlide.
The car also had no radio. I asked her why, because my family’s car always had a radio (tuned to the classical music station in Seattle). She replied that when she drove she liked her “peace and quiet.” I wonder if that was a consequence of driving with her sister (my grandmother, who lived a few blocks away). GrandMaMA (like most Crutchfields) seldom shut up, and was wont to give Auntie Fan (as we call her) all sorts of advice when she rode in her car.
A few minutes of Internet sleuthing says yes, the F-bodies had the A230 3-speed manual in two places: on the column for Slant Sixes standard, and on the floor for 318s standard (Slant Sixes optional). F-bodies with 360s were auto-only.
K-cars were 3-speed auto on the column or console, or 4-speed manual on the floor until 1986, when the 5-speed became standard.
My early 1985(mid 85 switched to fuel injection, carbureted on mine) Plymouth Reliant had the 5 speed. Great car.
Then there is the developing factor of “coolness” of floor shifts brought about by the 1950’s enchantment with European, predominantly British sports cars, all with floor shifts. Think about the absolute desirability of V8 Corvettes with floor shifting 4 speeds–the hot 327 with a Muncie 4 speed. Unobtainium to most high schoolers, but worthy of dreams.
By the early 1960’s here in Midwestern high schools like mine, column manual shifts and automatic shifts had already had the reputation of being for “old men, the old farts”, and not “cool” to have. A column shift was a sad, laughing point to my classmates, including me. A four speed with a floor shift was the “hot, to have item”. Something to dream about mated to a hot V8, or to dream about an MG with a floor stick shift. I would like to characterize this as the sports car/Corvette halo effect, and marketing, then, as now always chases the “youth market” to acquire “street creed”. Could you imagine a column shift in a ‘Vette or a Jag? That would have been laughable to us then! A column shift, the hot item in 1940, was now thought an unwanted, ancient relic of the past. A 3 speed on the column was considered sad, old, or worse. Four on the Floor, Wow, now you’re talking!
Likely Chrysler made a financial business decision to avoid developing and producing two different steering columns, and then luckily was on the right side of history and the youth market. Just a thought, as some would say.
Yeah, Chrysler Newports and Dodge Custom 880s were suddenly the hot car kids lusted after. 🙂
Come on, Paul, tongue-in-cheek, Chrysler Newports and its ilk, for teenage boys, likely were as invisible to them as a typical, dowdy 50 year old woman walking into a room of teenage males. The invisible 50 year old woman.
Now a four speed Vette or later a four speed 383, a 413, or “the” Hemi ‘Cuda, that would be as vibrantly visible as the , hormone elevating,libidinous, beautiful 18 yr old girl inducing instant lust as she entered the room.
No, a Newport or 880 wouldn’t cut it with impassioned young men, those were for “the parents”, who didn’t know any better.
In truth, as you already know, any column three speed, even a floor shift three speed and, God Forbid, an automatic transmission had for most teen-age boys, the desirability and appeal of a boil on a buttock.
Now that I’m older, I enjoy learning about the Newport and 880. An acceptance of my late and grandparent role in life, the target marketing group of the Newport and 880 long ago. Sigh! Alas!
Thanks for another great article.
Actually, in the 50s and well into the 60s (and even into the 70s), three-speed manual transmission cars were decidedly more desirable for young guys than their automatic counterparts. This was especially so with the massively popular ’55-’56’57 Chevys, which were of course by far the most popular cheap used car for guys wanting to have fast wheels.
Of course the first thing that went in was a Hurst floor shift conversion (or cheaper imitation). I can assure you that Powerglide tri-five Chevys were treated as if they had the plague.
Four speed transmissions were very rare and expensive before about 1965 or so, so finding one in the junkyard was next to impossible. Sure, the guys with plenty of money bought them, either to swap into their tri-fives, or a new GTO four-speed, but we’re talking about the high-school kids and such.
The Chrysler Torqueflite was the first automatic that was (somewhat reluctantly) accepted in the go-fast crowd, but that didn’t really start until 1962 or so, with the blistering fast 413 Max Wedge cars. But cheap Chevys lamost invariably had three-speeds, until their owners could find and afford a T10 to swap in.
In a drag race, a three-speed with a proper low (high numerical) real axle was not at that much of a disadvantage over a four speed. The hot setup for tri-five Chevys was a three-speed with overdrive and a very low axle, so that the three direct gears maximized the 1/4 mile run, and the overdrive made highway driving acceptable with that axle ratio. Which was actually more livable than a four speed with a low axle ratio,
Paul,
Interesting, there were different automotive and motorcycling worlds living in parallel, it seems. What we are exposed to young often becomes our reality, or the reality we aspire to. I and many of my friends whose parents were immigrants to the US were luckily exposed to foreign, not American cars owned by the parents, most of which had four speed transmissions. That path took me away from American cars early on.
My first car in 1965 was a worn out tired ’58 VW Bug that I tried to keep alive, then two years later came a well worn, oil consuming, oil fog generating 1960 Bugeye ( aka Frogeye A-H Sprite), no mosquito ever bit me while driving my Bugeye, Hah. Both provided four speed foreign car heaven for me. Then came the revelation of a used 1966 Honda OHC CB160 four speed motorcycle followed by a 5-speed Over-Head Cam (talk about mesmerizing engine and transmission sophistication) Honda CB 350 motorcycle, then a later 1976 4 cylinder SOHC CB400 with a SIX SPEED.
A college friend when graduating and marrying in 1969 bought a Fiat 124 Spider with a FIVE SPEED transmission. Then another friend bought an envy inducing ( for all of us) 1970 Porsche 911 T with a FIVE SPEED ( and huge debt that we didn’t think of or were aware of at the time). Five speeds became a norm to aspire to, when hopefully we earned enough to buy them.
Drag racing didn’t interest me or my friends, but motorcycle racing and the 24 hr motorcycle race at Nelson Ledges, trips to Mid-Ohio,Watkins Glen, especially for the Autumn US Grand Prix, rallies, Akron Sports Car Club autocrossing, now that was different.
The foreign car world and motorcycle world that I was exposed to in the mid to later sixties considered three speed transmissions of any type anachronistic. Multi speed transmissions and Overhead cams were the wave of the coming future that we wished for. Like I said, different automotive worlds living in parallel. In my world a Corvette with a small block 4 speed was preferable to a big block ‘Vette 4 speed.
Now in my “dotage”, all those distinctions don’t matter. I would actually love to experience driving a flat head inline 8 cylinder with three on the tree, something so removed from the present automotive experience that it is now very appealing, almost exotic. I thank CC for broadening my automotive horizons and interests.
Was there ever a “4-on-the-tree” from anyone?
In Japan, they still used a column shifter in vans until at least the mid-90s – a 5-speed.
1950’s Mercedes 190’s Had the 4-on-the-tree. An older guy when I was a kid brought one home from Germany when he got out of the Army. Thought it was very weird at the time, having only known 4-on-the-floor.
On European cars, they were quite common; even 5-on-the-tree (Alfa/Citroen). Not in the US, except for the first gen Chevy Van/GMC HandiVan, and presumably the gen1 Ford Econoline. We covered that here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-outtakes-extended-body-gen1-vans-how-about-a-column-shifted-t-10-four-speed-in-your-chevy/
I’ve driven a SAAB Sonnet with a 4-on-the-tree as well. That was funky!
Peugeot 203, 403, 404. My boss at the service station briefly had an early Econoline with one – he warned me not to drive it. No problem since we had a ’60 F-100 and a ’59 Jeep Universal too.
With Saab’s front wheel drive, a column shift was arguably more direct than a floor shift could have been.
I’ve driven 3 and 4 on the tree, but I don’t think I’ve ever driven 3 on the floor. I’ve driven a few 6 speeds, but not owned one yet … our new Golf is a 5 speed, which really feels like the most enduring “standard” in this regard; my oldest 5 speed was a 1974 Alfa, and newest is a 2015 Golf.
This Nissan Cedric taxi is at least from the late 90’s ou early 2000’s and have a 5 speed column shifter
Lots of Japanese, British, French and German cars had 4 on the tree (4OTT) from the immediate post war era to the 70s, then very few.
By the 80s, the Japanese still had a few (Toyota Crown, Nissan Cedric, etc.) Those could still be ordered in the 2000s, especially for taxis. Trabants kept their (which was a weird sliding thing) till their 1991 death I think… Peugeot pick-ups (404 and then 504) kept the 4OTT until the late ’90s.
Honourable mention for the only (I think) rear-engined 4OTT ever, the Tatra 603. The complexity of the linkages in that arrangement must be a pretty stunning sight.
The first gen Fiat Ducato (1981-1994) was only available with a five-on-the-tree.
The Rambler Ambassador made by IKA-Renault had a 4-speed ZF gearbox with column shifter.
Wow.. now THAT is something I have never seen. A full size Chrysler from the factory with a three on the floor! Also,odd that a big heavy car like that had such a dainty looking shifter! I have seen odd cars with a JcWhitney conversion. But not factory. I had a ’64 Valiant with a three speed, but it was the traditional 3-on-the-tree.
The Valiant and Lancer went to column shifters in 1962.
My dad bought a new 64 newport 383 2 barrel 3in the floor I was 10 and I always loved it first car I drove the day I got my drivers license got pulled over 3 miles from our house doing 110
I think 1965 was the last year for the push start Torqueflite. I tried it out on my grandfather’s ’65 New Yorker and it worked.
1964 was the last year.
I meant push start in the sense of pushing the car and throwing the car into first. It was in the manual (lol). And I did it. It was my car in high school and exactly the one you pictured way back when – 1965 New Yorker – dark green, black bucket seats, hardtop.
Dual pumps made it possible and Chrysler found few people knew about it or used it so they eliminated the extra rear pump. The cheapening of the redesign had begun.
Scaled down, in an aluminum case, it also had dual pumps, until after the 1965 model-year. A727 parts.
https://www.allpar.com/mopar/torqueflite.html
Rear Pump Models of the A-727 Torqueflite were produced from 1962 to 1965
http://www.extrememopars.com/a727torqueflitetransmissions.htm#gsc.tab=0
Yes; I misread your post to say “push button”. Need to slow down…
yes, that’s what I thought happened – you do a superlative job – I’ve learned so much here.
I miss the 1960’s Chrysler products, they have character and I find them more appealing as time goes by
Ford’s last year for rear pumps was 1964 in the cast-iron Cruise-o-matic BW 35 clone.
Some very early production (i.e. Aug. -Sept. 1964) 1965 Chrysler products still had the pushbutton Torqueflites. I’ve seen several at car shows in recent years. However , almost all 1965 model-year Mopars had column shift automatics , albiet with cables connecting to the trans., as the pushbutton shifters were
That claim would take some very sturdy documentation to validate, and I do not think any such validation can be forthcoming. It is about ninety-nine-point-endless-nines per cent certain there was no ’65-model Chrysler product built at the factory with a pushbutton-controlled transmission. You might have seen a ’64 misidentified as a ’65, or a car rebuilt with a mix of ’65 and prior-year parts, or you might’ve just heard a campfire story about a car someone wanted to sound unusually special.
More info is in the definitive CC post on the subject, here.
(It’s also not correct to say that “almost all” ’65 Mopars had column-shift automatics. Many of them did, but many models also had floor-shift automatics)
Another great example of the “engineering > everything else” mindset so common at Chrysler over the decades.
“Management says we need a 3 speed on the Chrysler line. That’s easy.”
The best part is that even though floor shifters were starting to become cool among the young, they were put into the cars bought by people who still thought floor shifters were out of 1939.
Then, when Chrysler got around to installing the New Process 4-speed, they had to use that miserable Inland shifter with the reverse lock-out handle. There are stories of guys busting their knuckles on the dashboard when they tried to speed-shift one of those. That must have hurt like hell.
I think it was 1969 when Chrysler finally got with the program and offered a proper Hurst shifter in their musclecars. Of course, then they came up with the Pistol-Grip shift lever a year later. It looked cool, but wasn’t any better than a regular knob.
Every ’64-’65 Dart, Valiant, and Barracuda ordered with the New Process A833 4-speed transmission was built with a Hurst shifter. The Inland thing came in for ’66.
Reading these articles about transmissions made me realize that of the forty-plus cars I have owned the only 3-speed was in the very first car I bought, a 1964 Corvair convertible. That was also the first manual transmission I drove, but I managed to teach myself fairly quickly. I hated the non-synchro first gear, as I had to make a sharp left uphill turn onto my road and doing it in second made nasty sounds. Luckily I read Road & Track and found an article on double-clutching. Learning to make that downshift without grinding made me one smug 17-year-old.
I suspect that if the goal was to make the 3-speed as cheap as possible, a floor shift seems like it would be cheaper to make than a column shift. A lot fewer linkage bits, and no need to make a dedicated steering column for the few cars that took the 3-speed option.
My ’79 C10 started life with a column shift, but I wound up changing it to a floor shift.
I really can’t think of anything positive to say about a column shifter, unless one frequently takes a 3rd (pickup) or 6th (passenger car) passenger on board.
From what I can find, the first column-mounted manual gear shifter was a model of the 1938 Plymouth, with the last one being the 1987 Chevy pickup. I would have guessed the last car to get a column-mounted 3-speed was a 1977 Chevy Malibu or Ford Maverick, but it was probably the 1980 Volaré/Aspen. I guess there’s some irony in that both the first and last cars with column-mounted manual shifters were both Plymouths.
Regardless, the biggest advantage was front passenger seating. Theoretically, there was also the ability to shift between gears without removing the right hand from the wheel, freeing up the left hand to flick cigarette ashes out the window.
I know there were Ford Granadas with 3-speed column shift, and that model lasted through 1980, but I’m not sure if column-shift manuals were available in the end.
edit: I meant the Granada of 75-80. The 81 redesign could only be had with a floor-shift 4-speed.
Edit of the edit: Searching old brochures tells me the column-shift Granada was 75-76 only, so you’re clearly right about the ’80 Plymouth Volare being the last passenger car with column shift.
I think the Chevy Nova ditched the column shift with the 1975 redesign. All the full-size cars had long ago stopped offering manuals. This leaves the intermediates where I think Chrysler gave them up in 1975, too, and I doubt you could get a column-shift Torino after, say, 1973.
With the advent of decent, affordable automatics across all models in the sixties, well, it was probably a foregone conclusion that the column-shifted manual’s days were numbered. With automatics proliferating, column 3-speed manuals just screamed ‘poverty-spec’.
This is an old thread, but I just looked up and confirmed that the column shifter went away on the Volare after 1977. In 1978-80 you got a floor shift if you wanted a manual, whether a 3 speed or the 4 speed (with the OD 4th).
Is the slider below the blanked-out panel the Park control? Presumably it didn’t do anything on the manual cars?
Good eye! I hadn’t noticed that.
I wonder if anyone has access to an owners manual from a 1961 to 1964 Dodge or Chrysler, and if it even refers to what that lever does in manual-equipped cars. Alas, the closest thing I found from those years was an Imperial manual, which of course only came equipped with automatics.
It would only be 60-62 that used this dash design. I believe the lever below the buttons was for the turn signals, because there was no lever for that either. I have been stumped on where the Park lever went on this dash design.
This turn signal control was used in the 60-62 Chryslers.
The answer for the missing ‘park’ lever is because on some Chrysler models, there wasn’t one! It depends on how the vehicle’s parking brake was configured. On those lower-tier Dodges and Plymouths with a parking brake routed through the rear drum brakes, there was a parking sprag in the transmission, so they got the sliding ‘park’ lever.
The upper-tier Chrysler and Imperial models (those with the goofy, sliding turn-signal switch) had a parking brake that operated via the driveshaft. There was no transmission parking sprag on them and, thus, no sliding lever, but had the turn-signal lever in the area where the ‘park’ lever would normally have been.
Good, ‘ole weirdo Chrysler…
My cousin bought a 74 Dart out of Washington DC and it was ordered with a bench seat and three speed on the floor. He got all the paperwork with the car and notes attached said the original owner had bought the car as she needed ac but was not willing to give up the three speed floorshift in her old car.
He used to get a lot of raised eyebrows at shows with a 74 Dart custom sedan with factory air and stick!
Oh yeah. The trade in? A Plymouth coupe from the thirties! I wonder what would have happened to it on a dealers lot back then? I can’t remember the exact year my cousin told me but he did say it showed very low mileage.
On a reread – the Custom 880 had 3-on-the-floor, and the big engines could be had with it. Was the CHP still buying manuals in the early ’60s?
Make mine a stripper 1963 Chrysler Newport in black…
I owned a 1962 Newport 2-door hardtop with that transmission…and nothing else in the way of options but a radio. It made me wish for a four-speed transmission – it was impossible for me – even with double-clutching – to shift into first gear while the car was moving; and the gear ratios resembled first, second, and fifth of a five-speed box.
A couple of years ago I was looking longingly in HMN at a beautiful burgundy 1966 Chrysler 300 2-door hardtop that had a 3-speed manual transmission.
…and one of my old WPC Club compadres, a parts store counterman, said he’d had a customer for a clutch for a 1969 Newport. Now that would have to be a rare bird, I’d think.
Very interesting about the manual transmissions in these big cars. They must have sold in very small numbers. I remember in high school in ’66 seeing a ’64 Chrysler Newport two door hardtop with the manual three speed in the floor. I was like new. Would sure love to have it now. Motor Trend tested a new ’64 Newport four door sedan. Had no options except radio and heater. Manual tranny, steering and brakes. They loved it. Of course it handled much better that a contemporary Buick, Olds or Mercury.
We had a ’61 Dodge Lancer station wagon ( Dad bought second hand at the local Ford dealership). It had the manual three speed floor shift. Was a great little car and I thought so much nicer in any way than a Falcon of same vintage.
As I mentioned earlier, there were so few full size Chryslers sold with manual transmission. I saw a ’55 Chrysler with a manual transmission. They did not ever bother to tool up a ’55 three on the tree. The steering column, shifter and even the steering wheel and center emblem were left over from the ’54 Chryslers.
To go further with the scarcity of manual transmissions, the post war Chryslers ( 46 thru 48 and first series 49s) were virtually identical. Theoretically were offered with a manual three speed but no one has ever seen one that did not have the 4 speed semi-automatic fluid drive.
Hey Tom and others posting here
We have a fully operational 62 Chrysler Newport with 3-speed manual on the floor 361 v8. All numbers match we bought it from a older gentleman around 7 years ago.
We are wondering just how many did they make in 1962 so we can insure it to full value. Thanks
VERY interesting article! Being a manual transmission fanatic, I found this fascinating and surprising. Also surprising as nrd515 mentioned vehicles were available without factory heaters in the 70s. This article makes me think my 1980 Ford Club Wagon 1987 Ford Aerostar and 1985 Dodge Caravan with floor mounted manual transmissions weren’t as unusual as this.
Thanks for the interesting information on Chrysler-the company frequently marched to its own drummer-and that Magenta and white interior in the first photograph is spectacular. One thing I really liked about the 1950’s was the spectacular exterior colors and the matching interiors.
I’ve seen a ’78 Monaco coupe with a slant six and a three speed stick. It had column shift.
I learned to drive a stick on my Father’s 1964 Chrysler Newport wagon. That stick shifted smoothly, but the clutch was heavy spring, not hydraulic. Driving it every day people would almost certainly end up with one leg muscle larger than the other. His ’64 was also the fastest I have ever gone in a car to this day, hitting 120 and then still more before I backed off, on the San Rafael Bridge between Richmond and San Rafael CA after midnight. I had borrowed it for a college class when my 1958 Saratoga (push button TF) had broken down.