In article ,
Andy Dingley wrote:
Perhaps you'd name a car sold in the UK in the '20s with an auto box?

What's an "auto" box?

One that selects gear ratios automatically? One with clutchless
changes? A CVT ? One with a fluid flywheel / torque converter ?

A car which *changes gears unaided*, or has some form of variable gear
device like a CVT.

Rolls made a car called the 'Legalimit' before WW1 which had no variable
gearing at all and a fluid flywheel. But of course the single gear
approach doesn't work with an IC engine unless you can accept a poor top
speed and dreadful economy.

Now it's generally agreed that "auto boxes" as we really know them began
in the USA in the late '30s, but the components are older than this.
Wilson pre-selectors were almost commonplace in the '20s. Sperber had a
silent-chain drive box (think post-89 Rangerover transfer box) with
column switch selection of ratio. Lanchester had an epicyclic box and
experimented with automatic ratio selection. Daimler also had their
noted fondness for fluid flywheels.

But none of these achieved the requirement of changing gear unaided.

Down in the lightweight cyclecars
there were also several examples of simple CVTs, either rubber band and
expanding pulley (DAF system) or with other forms of sliding-ball
variable gear drives.

I'm pretty certain the first true auto sold in the UK was a post WW2 RR
which used an US GM transmission, and Rolls continued with the same one
into almost to the '70s.

--
*Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm *

Dave Plowman London SW
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