Cruise-O-Matic
Like Ford, variations of this same Borg Warner design were used by other automobile manufacturers as well, such as AMC, International Harvester, Studebaker, Volvo and Jaguar, each of them having the necessary unique adaptations required for the individual applications.
Ford initially approached Studebaker to purchase rights to use the DG-series automatic developed by the Detroit Gear division of Borg-Warner.
Because of this agreement, Ford licensed the design themselves and broke ground immediately on an assembly plant to build the remaining transmissions.
[2] In the mid-1950s, cars began to grow in size, and in response to heavier vehicles, more powerful engines were being developed.
The original Ford-O-Matic was used as a template when developing the next automatic transmissions for Ford; in fact, many of the gear sets are interchangeable.
The new transmissions arrived for model year 1958 which coincided with the release of Ford's new FE and MEL engines.
The smaller FX was built alongside the Ford-O-Matic at the Fairfax Transmission Plant and was put in midrange Ford and Mercury models.
This transmission was offered on Ford models Falcon, Fairlane, and Galaxie, Mercury models Comet, and Meteor and Edsel cars with differences in the torque converter, valve bodies and clutch plates to accommodate differing engine torques.
Ford decided to combine the best attributes of the MX and FX transmissions and ended up with an improved version of the "X" called FMX.
In the 1950s, as the GAZ plant was preparing to launch its new generation of cars, that comprised the mid-size GAZ-21 Volga sedan and the full-size GAZ-13 Chaika limousine, it was specified that both vehicles feature the automatic transmission.
Both cars' handbrake actuated a central drum between the housing and the drive shaft, instead of the rear wheels.
Volga's transmission, based on the Ford-O-Matic, required additional adaptation to the air-cooled torque converter, as it was driven by a 65 hp 4 cylinder engine.
In Drive the car would start in second and automatically shift to third depending on throttle position (the valve was regulated by a lever linked to the accelerator pedal).
The transmission was controlled by a dial-button panel with four regimes: Зх, Н, Д, Т corresponding to Reverse, Neutral, Drive and "Braking".
Initially, it was planned that all of the privately owned Volgas be produced with the automatic, whilst a more Spartan trimmed taxi version featured the three-speed manual.
However, most of these cars were given as prizes to workers of distant regions for excellent results, instead of being kept in large cities, where they would be more practical.
The "lucky" customers had great difficulty in obtaining adequate spare parts, qualified service and most of all, transmission fluid.
Chaikas, on the other hand, were available only with the transmission, and in 1962 it received a slight upgrade in number of clutch packs and piston shapes.
In 1963, GAZ introduced the third Soviet type of a KGB Q-car, the GAZ-23, by transplanting the large V8 engine and the powertrain of the Chaika into the unibody Volga.
This car was used as a motorcade escort by the KGB's ninth directive (responsible for personal security of the party leadership) as well as surveillance teams of the 7th directorate.
That year the car got a major facelift and internal modernisation with engine and chassis elements from the GAZ-3102 Volga, resulting in the GAZ-24-10 model.
As only partial statistics have been published, it is difficult to count the total number of transmissions built (including replacements).
