History Great old Automatic Transmission Names and other trivia

Before automatic transmissions had names like 700R4 and 4L60 they had more promising, meaningful names like PowerGlide and TorqueFlight. Picture the corporate stuffed shirts sitting around the table, "OK boys, we need an advanced, space age name for our new A/T". Herb, "How about Magic Carpet Ride"? "Naw, not catchy enough".

What are some other great A/T names from the past?

 

Dynaflow, Hydromatic, Turbomatic, Twin Turban, Flightpitch, Torqueflight, Ultramatic, Jetawy, Rotohydramatic, Stratoflight.

 

Jet-A-Way.

-Abone.

 

Cruise-O-Matic, Powerflight

 

GYRO TORQFLITE

 

TempestTorque

 

Fluid Drive,a Chrysler automatic transmission used from 1939 to 1953. HRP

 

always liked the Cruise-O-Matic name......made ya think you were gonna go fast with no problems whatsoever.
Dad bought a new 64 Ford with it.
coupla others...
Ford-O-Matic, Merc-O-Matic, Powerglide.

 

Wow a lot more than I thought. Rotohydramatic? LOL I agree, Cruise-O-Matic takes my vote for the most real world promise. FlightPitch sounds a little scary. What was the one Chevy used behind the 348?

 

How about the good old Duel-Path piece of S...

 

Turbo glide

 

Slip-n-slide....aka....

 

Rambler Flashomatic,
GMC Pow-R-Flo
Studebaker Flightomatic

 

no one has said Slim Jim yet

 

Oh yeah, TurboGlide. What was the deal with that, predecessor to the Turbo400? Never really got hot rodded did it?

 

Slush Box

 

That one was only installed in the CKD cars sent to Iran in the late-60's.

Cosmo

 

We call them "the one legged man salvation"

The PowerGlide is split in two; the ironGlide and aluGlide.

And wasn't it common at the dragstrip to call then "the power hop"?

An one comes to think of grease: Well, this car is,systematic, hydromatic, automatic

 

In high school, we always referred to the iron powerglides as "peanut butter drive" or "gooey-go". We also referred to the 58-59 chevy turboglides as "growl" transmissions because of the "GR" [grade retard] on the shift indicator. As you can see, we had a very low opinion of automaric transmissions in the mid 60s.
Oh yeah.........a slant-pan hydro in a GM car was always referred to as a "bang-shift hydro"...

 

Mercomatic, Fordomatic... (but no Lincomatic??)...

 

Clutch-flite.......

 

That's the most ill lyricted car song that there ever was.

 

Automatics are for women and old folks

 

I am going with this , at least until the doctor decides what to do about my knee

 

Already uncomfortable enough and there is no room for a clutch peddle plus I'm one of the old folks.

 

Good subject, and the best thing about some of them was the chrome script names on the dash or steering wheel hub. Great type fonts, "space age" lettering, wild names.

 

Turboglide was not a precursor to Turbo 400.....nothing like it. It was Chevrolet's first aluminum case automatic
and was introduced in 1957 models with the 283 engine. While it was often combined with the 348, they also were
available with the (iron) Powerglide.

Ray

 

Down here in Australia we generally got fairly tall rear end ratios, hence the post text which sometimes comes when referring to a Powerglide "100 in Low and one to go!".
Local GM Holden cars were mostly fitted with a Trimatic, often referred to as Traumatic due to lack of strength.

 

Lincolns were turbodrives. 3 speed