Column Shift

I'm kinda curious about how column shift works. Anyone have any images/diagrams that can help clarify how it all goes together?

Any particular reason they stopped using them? Too complex or were there other drawbacks?

 

Handy to let your girlfriend slide over, but generally clunky and prone to wearing out and/or breaking. Three across seating was the advantage. The rise of the automatic transmissions doomed them, I would expect. They stayed around longer in pickups than in passenger cars.

No diagrams here - maybe later today from home.

 

I suspect style played a part in it too. Most cars had floor shifts until around 1940 or so. Trucks on into the 50's. I remember as a kid in the sixties my dad giving me a "time" because I was puttin a Hurst floor shifter in my car because twenty or so years before they all wanted cars with column shifts.

 

Somewhat.... but yeah kinda tough to tell how it all actually functions.

Think something like this could be made to fit any particular manual tranny? Or would the transmission need to be made with something like this in mind?

 

Interesting how styles change. There was a line in the Tuxedo Park brochure that said something like...

Equipped with a convenient column shift---Can you imagine that some competing vehicles still have a floor shift?

I lost my TP ad, but it went something like that...