Pontiac, Michigan, June 25, 1999 - Alfred P. Sloan, GM's
first chairman, was more than impressed when he took his inaugural ride in a 1940
Oldsmobile equipped with the brand new Hydra-matic transmission. "For fifteen years,
I have felt that the gearshift lever had no place in a really modern car," Sloan
wrote. "I feel very strongly that it is only a matter of time when every car must
have this kind of a transmission." Sixty years later, most vehicles roll off the
assembly line with automatic, simplified transmissions.
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1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic "88" Convertible
Photo: GM
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| These days, as Sloan predicted, most North American motorists
wouldn't even consider buying a car that requires manual gear shifting and clutch pedal
pushing. As part of this historic occasion, GM Powertrain hosted a barbecue lunch and
classic car show for its 2000 employees on the patio of Powertrain's Pontiac headquarters.
The event, held on Friday, June 25 at 11:30 a.m., kicked off a round of celebrations by GM
Powertrain facilities throughout North America. Homi Patel, vice president and general
manager - manufacturing; Bob Moran, manufacturing manager - transmissions; and Harvey Won,
director - transmission engineering spoke briefly about the history of the automatic
transmission and its significance in automotive history. Employee donations were also
collected to benefit the Pontiac Rescue Mission.
"The automatic transmission was among the automotive industry's most innovative
development of the 20th Century," said Arv Mueller, vice president and group
executive of GM Powertrain. "The men and women in GM Powertrain facilities around the
world should feel proud to be part of such a performance-driven organization."
When it was introduced, first on Oldsmobiles, and then on other makes and models, the
Hydra-matic drive was considered a revolutionary innovation. As the first fully automatic
automobile transmission, the Hydra-matic reduced driving to the simplest possible terms:
steer, step-on-it and stop.
The public immediately took interest in the automatic transmission. Two years after it
entered the marketplace, GM began manufacturing a military version of its popular
transmission for World War II tanks. Within seven years, GM built 500,000 cars with the
Hydra-matic drive. That figure doubled within the next two years, surpassing the 1 million
mark by 1949. "This truly was an amazing development," Mueller said. "It
changed the way people thought about driving."
On the eve of this milestone anniversary, GM Powertrain's world-renowned transmission
engineering team is following the lead of its forerunners by working to continuously
improve and further simplify the driving experience. Today, GM's automatic transmission
product lineup is more expansive than ever and still leads the industry with nine
world-class automatic transmissions, which are used on GM cars and trucks, as well as many
other manufacturers' vehicles.
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