The highly-idiosyncratic Citroen 2CV had a similar gearchange pattern; like the Peugeot, the idea was to put the two most-used gears (2nd & 3rd) together. As a Peugeot aficionado I can say that this worked very well, especially if you were in a hurry on a winding road.

But the early 2CVs had neither a column change nor a floor-change; the lever came horizontally out of the dash;



Sorry; I couldn't find a photo but the drawing shows the gear lever. First was to the left and back iirc.

And the Citroen Traction Avant had a H-gate on the dashboard. I couldn't find a photo of this arrangement.

Joining late and embarrassed to relate - my father purchased a Nissan Cedric 6 seater wagon, circa 1967-8, to haul a large family. The beast had a 4spd column change on the left which had to be rowed constantly to maintain any forward motion with the 1900cc engine. It did have a number of nice features, however the model name, engine size and overall appearance were not amongst them.

On the other hand, Jags MkVII thru to 420Gs' had a lovely little column lever for the auto box, illuminated at night with a soft purple glow to mimic avaiation practice.

Cheers,
Bill D

I have a LHD, four speed, Jowett Javelin with the column change on the RHS of the steering column, and it works very well, but the travel is a bit long. RHD Javelins have the gear change on the LHS of the column. The linkage is very short as the gearbox is by the bottom of the steering column.

I remember a Boxing Day race meeting at Brands Hatch when Archie Scott Brown raced an Alfa Romeo 1900 sedan with LHD and a right hand coloumn mounted gear lever. Flagging on the exit from Druids, I could clearly see him changing gear with his left hand!

It's more about the internal gearbox arrangements than the "most used gears" in the case of the Peugeot. As has been noted above, third was the straight-through drive, so the gearchange layout followed naturally as if it had been a three-speeder with an added (overdrive) fourth gear.

I'm not so sure about that...

You see the 403 in 1958/59 graduated to a direct top gear and a 4.2:1 rear end. But the gearbox was still set up to give second and third gear in the same plane.

It wasn't until the BA7 gearbox was introduced in 1967/68 that a 'normal' gearchange was brought it. It was in all the papers.

Even though it was 'normal', it differed from most other cars in that third and top were towards the driver rather than away. If my memory is correct, anyway, that was how it was. If it's not correct, I'm sure someone will get it right.

At one stage in my life I drove a Mk IX Jaguar for many thousands of miles on the 'Continon', towing a Formula Ford, and the auto quadrant was really neat - and night driving was a pleasure with that purple glow, restful but effective...

It amazes me how a thread can touch a nerve and send you back.... Sometime in the mid 70's as a favour for a pal's dad, I drove a 420G from Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire to White Cross Bay on Lake Windermere towing a 22 ft Avenger offshore powerboat with a D-Type Jag engine and the image and touch of that delicate little auto column change came vividly back to me out of nowhere!
I also remember the 420G as having twin fuel tanks with a filler on each flank and 2 fuel gauges on the dash;IIRC you switched tanks via a rocker switch. I recall that towing the Avenger, you could literally watch the gauges move as it returned about 12mpg!

Ray is right, early Guansvards! [pre50]had a r/h change onR/h drive cars. Was a weird thing for an Aussie used to left hand change.
personally I have driven most combos the afore mentioned Vanguards, normal 3,4,5 on the column l/h change left hook auto and 4speed r/h change plus my Galaxie with r/h change auto on a r/h drive carand some weird euro commercials of unremembered make with the gearlever from strange places. Plus 5speed/3 speed trucks or with 2 speed diffs.
And doing racecar testing getting out of my fairly normal r/h drive 4 speed car into a l/h drive 5 speed with the gearlever mounted on the engine cover, alongside the driver.Felt a bit like the old hotrod cartoons. but worked fine.
And what is wrong with 3 on the column racecars anyway. when i built a HQ Holden racer I retained the column shift, and it worked a damn site better then the Speco piece of junk that the next owner fitted. my arm ached after racing that!

And typewriter trans on both right and left drive Mopars!

Yes i have seen that combo on Vanguards too, as well as 2 levers, As far as i know they never made an aftermarket shift for them.
When i was a little tacker and the family ar was a beetleback mum carried a hammer to unjam the shift mechanism. It always worked.
Lots of old dirt cars with 2 levers, even now.

Without wishing to get into lever one-upmanship (well, OK, maybe a bit), might mention that my elderly Land-Rover has four transmisdion levers - four-speed gearbox, high-low ratio selector, two-four wheel drive selector and overdrive in-out. Perversely, the overdrive is the only one with pretensions of synchromesh.

Seem to remember that the clever Renault 16 had quite a good column-shift when it appeared, though finding reverse was sometimes a both-feet-on-dashboard-and-heave operation. The 1963 Ford Corsair (like the contemporary Zephyrs and Zodiacs) had a column shift as standard, with four-on-the-floor as an option (though at least had synchromesh on all forward gears, unlike their BMC rivals). And the early Simca 1300 and 1500 had a floor-shift but with a reverse-pattern on RHD cars, with the 1-2 plane nearest the drive and 3-4 further away - what fun.

Two levers?

Like the Mitsubishi Colt?

My 1966 Sunbeam Alpine MkIV had four on the floor and overdrive on 3rd and 4th gear on a stalk on the column effectively giving you six forward ratios, but obviously between 3rd and overdrive on 4th, you were alternating between floor and column which could create confusion on occasion!

Aaaaargh! I have just recalled a post war side valve Hillman Minx my father had which I have referred to on many an occasion as being a "3 speed-with-underdrive".
(column change, natch..)
I'm certain the damn thing could, in first, have mastered a vertical wall, given sufficient traction! It was truly awful: ghastly!

I actually drove one of those for awhile. With both levers at work it was possible (though not practical) to drive it as an 8-speed!

Jag Mk IX too, we sprung a leak in one and had to fibre-glass it in the paddock at Innsbruck, but could have carried on using the second tank. Happy days...

A few quotes from Motoring Which 1962 ...

"The Fiat 1500, Ford Taunus and Peugeot 403B had steering column gear changes, the Peugeot having an idiosyncratic arrangement of the gear positions which takes a little getting used to for those who have been brought up differently."

"Very fast gear changes could be made in the Fiat 1500, but the effort involved was sometimes a little high. The Peugeot gear change could not be hurried."

That reminds me that we can cite another racer with column change, namely the Jowett Jupiters one of which won the 1½ litre class in 1950 and 1951 I'm not sure if the R1 Jupiters of 1952 had the column change, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Looking at my photograph of the R1 cockpit at the 2008 Revival, the car retained its column change.
Roger Lund

I went through the book "The Compete Jowett History" and there is a photo of the Jowett Jupiter R 1 that raced at Watkins Glen in October 1951, and the gear lever can be seen on the steerin column. The R4 had a floor gear change.

I learnt to drive in a Peugeot 203. and the change certainly couldn't be hurried (although 2nd to 3rd or back wasn't too bad). If hurried the plastic surround which held the pivot joints would crack badly. Our (Dad's really) car had a cracked cover most of its life with us. Mind you, you could double shuffle the down changes which of course I did. Got told off by the fat country plod who took me for my driving test, when I changed down for a corner: "don't drive like that son, put it into neutral as you go into the corner, coast around it and then put it into the gear as you come out of the corner". Still he did pass me.

A few years later I owned a Fiat 1100 for a year or so. It had a loverly column change, quite precise and quick.

An ex-girlfriend of mine drove a very neat, white Peugeot 405 Coupe, styled by Pininfarina. It had a column gearshift. It took no time at all to get used to it and soon became a pleasure to use. Until the rear axle disintegrated in the middle of the night and in the pouring rain, somewhere around Valenciennes on our way back from the 1987 Belgian Grand Prix...

Edward

I seem to recall that the handbook for my Minx said that it had a three speed gearbox with an extra emergency low ratio.

Good for truckies used to multiple levers.they did actually split every gear though a little impractical.

That would have been a 404, no doubt...

Rear wheel drive and all that stuff, quite a good looking car. We used to have a member here who owned one, lived in Vancouver.

And 2Bob recalls the weakness in the 203 column setup. All too true, and some of it carried over to the 403, but the 404 was virtually unburstable in that department (just like most others... provided you kept oil up to the diff, which wasn't real hard) and had a very precise and useful change.

The 1955 Austin-Healey 100 I had was three-speed plus overdrive. Somewhere I learned the fourth speed was in there, way below the second (first) gear, and that if you took out the blocking plate it was available for use. It topped out at something under ten MPH, if I recall correctly. It did then have eight forward speeds, and I actually made the full progression one time. Practically speaking, "three speed plus overdrive" worked.

When I was in the Air Force (1958, I guess) and on leave in Los Angeles, I went to a sports car dealer on Crenshaw, where I saw a 1956 Healey 100. I would have liked to make a deal for it, trading my MGTD, but it was not to be. The salesman wouldn't let me take a test drive, but he did do a few miles with me as passenger. He said, "It shifts nice and smooth", as he ran through all four gears in order and ramdomly, letting the clutch out in each, matching engine speed with car speed perfectly, so there was absolutely no lurch or grinding. A remarkable demonstration.

When I asked him a question, he said, "You'll have to talk louder; my ears are still ringing from driving my Lotus at Pomona". He was Bob Challman, eventually the West Coast distributor for Lotus cars, and a fellow SCCA Steward. Ten years later he was still saying, "You'll have to talk louder". and it was a long time since he had driven his Lotus at Pomona.

Actually here in Oz both Ford and Holden full size 6 seaters and 3 seat utes have a column auto. I believe some US full size models also are similarly equipped.

Ray Bell.

You're quite right. It was a 404 Coupé and very pretty it was too, with plenty of poke under the front bonnet. She eventually had to scrap it, because the side members were rotting away with rust and it would have cost a fortune to repair. A terrible shame.

Edward

Ah! Bob Challman (and his Ecurie Shirlee Lotus Team). Names from the past.
I think he was on Sepulveda Boulevard.
OT Does anyone remember the address or block for Lew Spencer/ Rene Pallandini's Worldwide Imports? They had AC's
and Morgans.

I'll say!

I would have paid good money for one of those in that condition. Then learned how to do rust repairs so I could fix it. It would undoubtedly have become my No 1 and never to be disposed of car, complete with 2-litre engine and 505 5-speed gearbox.

Now, who knows which car this is from? And it's not Peugeot!



A clue, it's also 4-speed with overdrive top, also with first and reverse in the one plane away from the driver, also with top towards the driver. But with an odd twist.

Austin Cambridge? Don't know why I think that...

No, not the Cambridge... which would be identical, of course, with Morris Oxfords et al...

Someone else want to have a guess?

Ray,
I'm thinking, "Hindustan". The Mombay Taxi !!

No... and I think you've missed the point too...

The majority of cars with 4-speed column change had first towards the driver and up, second in the same plane and down, then third centralise and up, fourth straight down from there, and then reverse away and down... usually.

This one, exactly like the Peugeot, has reverse away and up, first away and down, second and third in the central plane, then fourth towards the driver and down. The latter part is absolutely unique. And fourth is an overdrive.

Ray,
Second try. I'm thinking Lada. The steering wheel badge ? The 100 mph? speedo is offputting. 100kph would seem too low.

What a glorious vehicle!!

Another view;

Indeed it was...

Prince Gloria, the example I posted was a rare 2500 4bbl version.

I recall circa 1964 a Sunday drive from Bathurst( where my cousins) lived to Hill End via the Bridle Track-all unsealed ,couple of creek crossings,steep and rocky in parts.Four adults,five children with me the oldest at 14,in an FX Holden. Could not have fit everyone in with a floor change !! The FX which I later learned to drive in had quite a precise gear change but from the FE onwards the holden 3 on the tree seemed to get sloppier, culminating in the hk-ht hg which all loved to jam in second and demand under bonnet attention low on the steering column where the greased slides would overshoot and bind. No HQ or later base model holden was worth driving at all for many years after the HG,be it 3, 4 OR 5 speed,column or floor.
As Leenicholle said the aftermarket 3 on the floor things were rubbish,and most lazy hoons just left a jagged hole in the floor to let in noise ,and fumes from the pre-PCV-Valve grey motors which dumped crankcase breathings a foot upstream of the hole in the floor.

I wonder if the unusual gearchange gate of the Gloria was simply a result of its conversion from LHD; if you "invert" the RHD gate you get one that more resembles the Peugeot.

An advanced vehicle in some ways; the earlier ones had a De Dion rear I believe.

Yes, it had the De Dion rear end...

But they were originally built for RHD Japan, so nothing to do with LHD conversion. And the oddest thing about it is that fourth is back and down. Actually, if you changed that it would be identical to a Peugeot... not by reversing it.

Here's the Vanguard right hand column change:



And here's the spats that go with it... as onelung pointed out a while back:



I could probably find a bunch more of these if I tried. See what I can do...

My fathers late beetleback [52 53?] came with spats which were never replaced because they would not fit with the 650x16s which he had in stock probably from our ute.

Okay, here's a few more... see if anyone can pick them:






And here's a little something... showing that passenger comfort preceded all else, but style must have had something to do with it. A very early floorchange auto:

Among that lot are Humpy Holden, Mk 1 and 2 Zephyrs ,a fishshop Falcon, A90? and the T bar is a early shape T bird

Could No.3 be 53/55 Chrysler/Dodge/DeSoto/Plymouth. Similar shaped speedo anyway.

I think you are right. we need quizmaster and Mopar man Bell!

I see a Wilson pre-selector in the red MG Special.

Speaking of odd arangements... Citroën DS had quite a unique scheme. You even started the engine with gear lever...!

There is no MG Special there, Terry...

No 3 is a '55 or '56 Plymouth ute... well done Wagons. There is an FJ Holden one there, but it's not a 'humpy' at all... come on Lee, identify them, don't just list what there is! Oh, yeah, no A90s, no Mk 1 Zephyrs. And what's a 'fishshop' Falcon?

There's a red monoposto with an MG badge on the steering wheel, so naturally . . .