History of the Automatic Transmission

The invention of the automatic transmission has been great! There are no missing shift gates, no lugging engine, no torn-stocking. It is literally as easy as pressing the gas petal.

In originally automobiles only had manual transmissions , which we know as the stick-shift vehicles. These models had two forward gears along with one reverse gear, which worked with the engine and different petals. As automobiles become more and more popular, car engineers began thinking more creatively on how to have automobiles that shift automatically from one gear to another gear. Engineers spend years, even decades trying to perfect the idea of an automatic transmission.

Here is a quick history overview of automatic transmissions.

Overview of the 1st Automatic Transmission

In 1921, the automatic transmission was invented by Alfred Horner, a Canadian steam engineer. He designed the transmission to use compressed air instead of hydraulic fluid, but it lacked the necessary power and never was commercially sold. Later in the 1930’s, General Motors developed the first hydraulic fluid automatic transmission, which was introduced in 1940 as the original “Hydra-Matic.”

The first automobile model to use an automatic transmission was the 1948 Oldsmobile. The General Motors engineer, Earl Thompson, developed and advertised the Hyrda-Matic as, The greatest advance since the self-starter.” Through 1955, the Hydra-Matic went through constant upgrading by using the originally design. The Hydra-Matic was replaced with the “Jetaway” in the year 1956. The Jetaway, also known as the “Jet,” was unsuccessful and was soon itself replaced in 1969 by the more successful Turbo Hydra-Matic.

How Successful was the Hydra-Matic Transmission?

The Hydra-Matic was one the most successful innovations in history for the automobile. Although it was not the first ever automatic transmission, the was the first commercial success that helped guide the theory farther in the world of the automatic transmissions.

The automatic transmission technology came at a perfect time in history, since North America was victorious from World War II and increasing steam for the post-war boom. As the popularity of the automatic continued to boom, President Hoover made the fulfillment of the previously unfulfilled promise, “a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot.” Which widen the use of the automobiles in the mobile workforce, help the flow of migration in the suburbs, and accepted women into the economy following the war effort. The best improvement that came from the success of the automatic transmission is the numerous counts of forward gears transmissions that have switched to electronically controlled transmissions.

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