My Bugle arrived earlier this week and I just read Dave Corbin's article on the self shifting transmission. I wanted to publicly congratulate Dave for a very informative article and thank him for writing it.

I particularly liked the last part where it identified the open vs. torque tube drivelines as the likely cause of acceptance in Oldsmobiles and not in Buicks and how it led to subsequent automatic transmission development.

Dave,

I was gonna say something here myself but I havent been on a whole lot lately. I very much agree. I was real happy to see that they included it. What's funny is a lot of that info. he has posted on this forum before! But it was still a good read and there were one or two things I hadn't heard out of him yet.

Really cool though. Makes me wish I had one that much more. Probably a heck of a lot easier to keep up with traffic, AND cruise on the highway. Besides, with the harsh shifts I could just be like "yeah thats the shift kit" "yup got it from summit its a B&M bout a hundred bucks ya know tryin to drop the ET's any way I can" I got a few friends that would totally get a kick out of it. And seeing as I recently put one in the cougar and those shifts dont bother me at all, Im sure Id feel right at home!

Great article Dave, and the car looks geat, even though the picture was too small LOL.

Dear Derek and Paul:
Thanks for the kind words about the Bugle article. It's interesting that Paul mentions drag racing a self-shifter as there's a man who lives right here in Fort Worth that did exactly that about 50 years ago in Michigan and California. In addition, his car was modified in 2 very interesting ways. First, it was channeled 3 inches to lower it. Second, the shift controls were modified so that it only shifted from 2nd to 3rd when he moved the lever.
Regards, Dave Corbin

Dear Derek:
I've probably given myself a black eye as a historian by publicly stating my views about the self-shifter being "Daddy" to Hydramatic and "Mommy" to Dynaflow. A revisionist viewpoint and all that sort of stuff.
HOWEVER, that conclusion is the ONLY one that fits ALL the facts.
I note the saying by Sherlock Holmes to Mr. Watson that, when you've eliminated all other possibilities, whatever is left, no matter how strange it seems, must be the truth.
I also note the old saying that "Necessity is the mother of invention!!" (Mommy !!)
Regards, Dave Corbin

Well Dave, I don't know about the black eye...revisionist history seems to be going on all around us (at least in some particulars about the early settlement of western Canada)...that gets into a rather political discussion, but your conclusion certainly seems reasonable.

Of course, I'm no historian, so I don't know how they view presenting opinions / conclusions that are not generally agreed upon goes.

Dear Derek:
So far, when I've challenged people to show me another explanation that fits ALL the facts, nobody can. I'm back to my comment about ol' Sherlock.
The commonly accepted thing is that the self-shifter is no good. That's disproven by my forensic computerizing the parts book and seeing what Buick was actually doing, and all of the surviving cars that have high miles, like my original 92K mile car.
When you look at that 1951 GM automatic transmission application list and where Red Curtice was working when this plot was developing, it gets real clear what's was going on.
Regards, Dave Corbin