[Vwdiesel] Hudson

[William J Toensing]

Hudson's semi-automatic was called "Drivemaster". I have never driven a Hudson with Drivemaster nor rode in one that was operating but from what I heard about it, my name for it was "Sxxtmaster". Don't know if I made it up or heard it from someone else. Although I am not a fan of automatics, I am interested in automotive history. Perhaps you would like a brief history of automatics. Electric cars were popular around the turn of the 20th century because they were automatics. The first automatic I know of was a Porsche around 1900. I saw it at a Porsche exhibit at the LA auto show a few years ago. It had a gasoline engine driving a generator which drove electric motors in each of the front wheels. Around 1918 there was an Owens Magnetic which had a gas engine powering a generator which in turn provided power to run an electric motor driving the car. Around that era, there was the Cartercar which had the engine drive a large horizontal wheel.A smaller wheel was brought into contact which you manually moved towards the center for more power & to the outer edge for more speed. The old Model T Ford was a semi-automatic. It had 2 speeds forward. It had 3 pedals on the floor. The right was the brake, center reverse, & the left which was called the clutch was actually the shifter. You pushed it down for first. Half way up was neutral & up all the way was high gear.

In respect to "modern" automatics, the first I knew of was the Reo "Self Shifter". In 1937, GM introduced the "Safety Transmission" as an option on top of the line 1937 Oldsmobile's. It was available as an option on 1938 Bucks & Oldsmobile's, & I think on the 1939 Olds as well. It didn't work well on Bucks which had a torque tube driveshaft & was dropped for 1939 Bucks. The Safety transmission had a clutch that you had to use to shift into reverse, low range, & high range. The transmission actually had 4 gears forward, two in low range & 2 in high range plus a column shift which I think had 3 positions, reverse, low range, & high range.To shift between gears in either low range or high range, you just lifted the accelerator peddle, like a car with overdrive.


In !940, GM offered the first to offer a fully automatic transmission, the Hydromatic Drive, available as an option on Oldsmobile's. The next year, 1941, Cadillac got the Hydromatic as an option. The rest of the American automobile industry saw the need to offer some kind of an automatic to compete with GM. Chrysler came out with fluid drive & on DeSoto & Chrysler, a semi-automatic in 1940, I think. Dodge got fluid drive but no semi-automatic in 1941. Hudson came out with the previously described "Drivemaster". In the same year, Packard came out with the "Electromatic" transmission. I think all it was a normal transmission with overdrive which you can do with any overdrive transmission of the era. Use the clutch to get going in low. Then shift to second & high with out a clutch as the transmission is in freewheeling. At around 30 MPH, or higher, lift the accelerator to shift to overdrive. In 1942, Ford offered "Liquamatic Drive".on Lincoln & Mercurys. It was a flop. Most failed before the car went 1,000 miles. I think around 800 cars were so equipped & Ford recalled them all & replaced them with standard transmissions. Only one Liquimatic transmission survives & it is on display at the Calif. Auto Museum in Sacramento. I have seen it there. In 1942, Studebaker offered the "Turbotorque" automatic with no clutch peddle. However, from what I have heard, only one was ever made. In Feb. 1942, all auto production was stopped for the World War 2 war effort. This stopped any further development of automatic transmissions by Ford & Studebaker.When auto production resumed after the War, there was such a demand for new cars that that the industry just facelifted their prewar cars. As far as I know, Nash & Willys never offered an automatic on their prewar cars but did offer overdrive as an option

After WW2, Cadillac & Olds got the Hydromantic which Pontiac got in 1948, the same year that Buick got its Dynaflow automatic & Packard brought out its Ultramatic Drive, the first automatic drive with a lock up torque converter. Ford bought Hydromantic for the 1949 thru 1954 Lincolns as did Nash in 1950 (I had a 1950 Nash Ambassador with one). Hudson bought Hydromantic for their 1951 & later models. Chevy got its Powerglide option in 1950 & beginning in 1951, Ford sourced automatics as did Studebaker from Borg Warner which Ford called "Fordomatic & Mercury, "Mercomatic": It should be noted that Ford pioneered in the PRNHL shift quadrant while Hydromantic had a NHLR quadrant & you locked the car in reverse. Packard's quadrant was similar to GM With the addition of a P before the N but you had 3 forward positions with R at the bottom but differed from Hydromatic in that of the two higher forward positions, the higher notch allowed use of the torque converter until reaching high gear lock up where as the second notch shifted thru 2 gear before reaching high gear lockup. The rest, we could say was history.
Bill Toensing, Nevada City, CA