THE year was 1956. Melbourne had secured the Olympic Games, television was launched in Melbourne and Sydney - and Ford released the Customline with automatic transmission.
The sexist ads of the day heralded this innovation as a wonderful thing for the 'little woman' and had headlines like 'Just think – no more stalling!'.
The automatics used on the early Customlines were American-sourced three-speed units and were extremely reliable. Just four years after the introduction of two-pedal driving, Ford launched the new XK Falcon which was also available with the US-designed and built Fordomatic, two-speed unit.
The two-speed autos were superceded in 1965 by the locally-made Borg Warner 35, a three-speed unit which was stronger and able to take the added horsepower and torque of the more powerful Falcon engines of that era. Not to mention the V8s the Falcon would get one year later...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment