Pushbutton Transmissions I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer’s Pleasant Reminiscing Spot
Packard introduced it with their 1956 Caribbean. It was the electrical one, and it had problems. If you parked on a steep hill, the shifting motor would lock up trying to get the car out of Park. It would trip a breaker, and you would be stuck. To make matters worse, when Packard’s production ceased that year, the manufacturers of the shifting mechanism destroyed the tooling. Replacement parts became impossible to obtain.
The king of the boneheaded electrical shifters was the Edsel. Not only did the shifter have lots of problems, they mounted the buttons in the middle of the steering wheel Guess what would would happen when drivers made an emergency move for the horn.
Forget about 1950s and 60s. I rented a 2006 Taurus that had sun shades that obscured the rearview mirror and when you turned the steering wheel, you couldn’t possibly see the gear display as it was totally obscured by the steering wheel. Came in handy when parking…..
And the previous generation of Citroen C5, circa 2006, had a handbrake operating FRONT wheels, handy in emergencies…..
Check out the new Lincoln MKZ…pushbutton is back!!