My brother once owned an old GMC pickup truck with the “three on the tree” column shift. A neighbor borrowed the truck and the shift tube in the column broke. When my brother looked at the labor involved in fixing the column shifter, the truck became a “three on the floor” with the installation of a floor shift kit. He liked the floor shifter better than the column shift.
While we are on the subject of shifters, the last car I saw with the “three on the tree” column shift was a 1977 Chevelle. Was there a car made after 1977 with the column shift for a manual transmission?
The last truck I ever saw with a column shift was a 1981 Ford F-150. When did trucks discontinue the column shift for manual transmissions?
Dag
Our school librarian had a '76 or '77 Chevelle with “three on the tree”.
She even proudly showed me exactly where she would tap on the shift linkage under the hood, every time that it jammed. She carried a small monkey wrench under her front seat, just for this purpose.
I was very impressed that our late middle-aged, exceedingly academic librarian had mastered the art of actually getting her Chevy’s “three on the tree” to shift properly when it had one of its periodic jamming problems.
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With the exception of a few sports cars, pretty much every car out there with a floor shifter also has cup holders next to it. Exactly how many big gulps do you need to carry at a given time? "
Yeah! And what’s up with that extra seat to the right of the shifter?
“Our school librarian had a '76 or '77 Chevelle with “three on the tree”.
She even proudly showed me exactly where she would tap on the shift linkage under the hood, every time that it jammed. She carried a small monkey wrench under her front seat, just for this purpose”.
This was a common problem with the three speed manual transmission with the column shifter. I think this may have been part of the reason a lot of people went to automatic transmissions.
However, some cars had better shift linkages than others. My “three on the tree” 1947 Pontiac, 1948 Dodge, and 1954 Buick shifted very well and I had no linkage problems. My 1955 Pontiac and 1965 Rambler with the “3 on the tree” had terrible shifters and I would occasionally have to even up the shift rods on these cars by employing the same technique the librarian used.
It could have something to do with different/improved technology or maybe it is marketing in the hope of keeping the car fresh and different.
I think it is just styling and with the popularity of bucket seats plus it is cheaper.
At the greenhouse I worked at as a kid, we had a 61 Greenbriar van and the shifter was a lever on the dash. Come to think of it, I think my 61 Corvair had the same type of shift lever.
In my Rivieras though, the space under the console was pretty well packed and not wasted. That’s where the radio box was.
“At the greenhouse I worked at as a kid, we had a 61 Greenbriar van and the shifter was a lever on the dash. Come to think of it, I think my 61 Corvair had the same type of shift lever.”
They must have been been automatics. I used to drive a Greenbriar with a manual for a summer job. Talk about awful! It grew out of the floor between the seats, curved up near the dash, and ended up above its hole in the floor. The thing was over 3 feet long. I had a Corvair with a stick at the time, and it always seems like a sports car after driving the Greenbriar.
Yeah the Greenbrier was automatic. Terribly underpowered. Floor it and 15 minutes later it was up to highway speed. Used to have to run it into Wisconsin and through Minnesota to deliver flowers to the Holiday stations.
Allowing a bench seat or split bench with a column mounted shifter means that a 3rd person is going to be sitting in the middle, whether the factory wants it that way or not.
That 3rd person will not have a shoulder harness or an air bag and someone, or plural of that word, will get sued when an accident happens.
Thanks, ok.
But a third person could still sit on the center arm rest, completely unprotected.
Wish I could use that space and have a push-button shift pad out of the way. Or have a column shift lever.
Nobody should ever ride in a vehicle without a proper seat, proper seat/shoulder belt and airbag(s) (new vehicles). The way we did things when I was young was unsafe and foolish, but we didn’t know any better. Nobody did.
But I do wish manufacturers would go to pushbuttons on the dash (perhaps with a cover that could be closed, like my radio has) and make better use of the center space.
I learned to drive and took my drivers test in a '59 Plymouth Fury with a push-button transmssion and I always thought it was pretty nifty not having a gear shift lever in the way. The push button setup was pretty reliable in spite of the mechanical complexity for the time and one would think that in today’s electronic world an electrical push-button transmission on the dash would be a slam dunk.
I’ve always had an affinity for bench seats too but that’s just me.
It’s just tradition that’s keeping shift levers as levers. Modern automatic shift levers are electrical switches anyway. No mechanical link to the tranny. It’d be just as easy to make it a push button setup, but people like having that physical shifter.
let’s just hope some genius in the marketing department doesn;t have the engineeering guys integrate shifting into some intergrated control setup…(hint hint BMW, don’t DO that! Didn’t you learn from your abominable I-Drive?).
I love they way they took all the manual transmissions away then proceeded to make the shifters look and act somewhat like a manual. The commercials and movies all sound like the driver is shifting when there is no option for a manual shift. It’s nearly impossible to buy one anymore. I really miss that option. I learned stick shift on a Studebaker Lark and it was love at second gear. 
Our '59 Plymouth Custom Suburban wagon had pushbutton on the right of the steering wheel, no parking gear. In the '62 Plymouth Fury wagon it was on the left and there was a sliding lever that popped out the Drive button and set it into Park. In '65 it was on the column (Fury III).
Have you looked at all the stuff stuck on a steering wheel? Enough is enough, we don't need more.Years ago I drove a great aunt’s 1956 Dodge Royal on several occasions. It had the push-button shifter on the left side of the dash and I quite liked the setup. I’ve also driven a 1957 Edsel a few times (with the push-buttons in the center of the steering wheel) but I liked the Dodge’s setup better. More recently I’ve driven some minivans with a small shift lever up on the dash (which I think is an improvement over the column mounted gearshift). Overall, I prefer the push button setup and would like to see it make a comeback. As others have said, the shifting is electronic anyway so it shouldn’t be hard to do.
Interestingly, the 1956 Dodge Royal pushbutton shifter was mechanical, while the Edsel (it was actually a 1958 as 1958 was the first model year) pushbutton transmission control was electrically operated. As I remember, the Edsel arrangement was rather troublesome. The smaller, less expensive Edsels on the Ford chassis (Ranger and Pacer) had a lever operated transmission. The more expensive Edsels on the Mercury chassis had the pushbuttons in the center of the column. The 1959 and 1960 Edsels all had a lever operated automatic transmission. Chrysler dropped the pushbuttons for the 1965 model year.
For the 1955 model year only, Chrysler had a small shift lever on the dash on all its lines. My 2011 Toyota has the shift lever on the dash. I sometimes think I’ve gone back in time and am driving a 1955 Plymouth.