On the subject of fluid drive transmissions, I have a 1951 DeSoto six and used to have a 1952 Chrysler New Yorker V8, both fluid drive models. I have driven them, studied them and worked on them. Certainly they are no threat to a modern automatic but they are one of the best efforts at an automatic transmission for their day. They were simple, reliable, worked well, and were not hard to repair or service compared to other automatics of the times. The fluid coupling would slip at idle but as you speed up the engine it would progressively increase its resistance. Around 1200 RPM you would reach a sort of "irresistable force meets the immovable object" point where the resistance was so high the engine could not overcome it, and you could hold the gas pedal to the floor with the brakes locked and the engine could rev no higher. If it did you knew something was wrong with the fluid coupling. For speed or racing purposes they used to drain off some of the fluid to allow the engine to rev higher. This had the same effect as a modern day high stall speed torque converter, allowing the engine to rev up into a higher power band. There is another thing that you can do to speed up the shifts, a simple adjustment. On the carburetor there is an antistall dashpot. Its purpose is to prevent the throttle from closing too quickly which could stall the engine. But the quicker the throttle closes the faster the shift. So you could back off the adjustment in stages until the engine stalls on you when driving, then adjust it up just a little. This would give you the fastest possible shift. One more old time trick. You can force the shift to go faster. For example if you have the throttle to the floorboards in 3d gear in a drag race and you want to force the shift into high, when you lift off the gas quickly whip the gear lever into low range and back into high and the shift will drop right in. All this is sort of academic. I am certainly not going to drag race or abuse my car. I know they used to do this in the 50s but come on. Elizabeth Taylor used to ride National Velvet back then too but I doubt she will be jumping on a horse any time soon. One other thing. A properly adjusted tranny will shift in about one second in normal driving. How fast can you shift a manual trans? I mean a column shift 3 speed from the 40s and early 50s? About the same in normal use. So how slow is the fluid drive really? Or does it just seem slow because you are sitting there doing nothing waiting for it to shift?