So...what American cars.....

Putting on from a 63 Chrysler Newport in my 41 Hudson... Working on putting it along side the seat...

 

I think the Lincoln Futura ( AKA Batmobile) had it as well not that it was a production car (too bad!)

 

Mopar push****ons were very successful. A ton of SS/A's had them as well as AFX/s. The Edsel's and Packards were electric and not very successful. I think it is true that women broke their nails and that along with standardization led to their demise ..

 

Cord & Hudson used an electric pre-select shifter with manual trans in the '30s ... in the teens, electric push****on setups were used by Owens Magnetic & Premier.

 

my brothers 57 firedome has one. it hasnt had any problems yet. from what ive heard they are very dependable. pops told me stories about stealing his "friends" when he was a kid and slamming it into park or reverse(cant remember which) on the freeway. said it sounded like a jake-brake, but nothing ever actually broke

 

One of my favorite drag car names of the early 60s was a SSer called Mr. ****ons.

The Mopar's used the ****ons to move a cable that did the shifting. No electricity involved. My 58 Plymouth ****ons/cables were not compatible with the 63 torqeflight that I transplanted into it.

 

I think the failure of electrical operation in those early attempts had more to do with the quality of solenoids available then.

 

I think the main reason is the addition of a Park feature on the later transmission. Also changes were later made to the shapes of the cable actuation cams in the shift pod. The ****on arrangement determined the shape of the head. The early pod-type are in a neat cluster while the later horizontal and vertical in-dash arrangements require a different design.The ****ons are not compatible between the early automatics and the later ones.

I prefer the early design because it looks so cool but not having Park means your e-brake should be in good order.