What a great video. First time I have seen anyone compare the Dynaflow to Fluid Drive. Interestingly, Buick held onto the Dynaflow into the 60's. Chrysler saw the Fluid Drive as a first design to be improved as soon as they could. Thanks. Very entertaining.
This was a remarkably well explained description of the two transmissions. It must take a while to get fully oriented on these, especially the fluid drive. You did a terrific job of going over this. Probably the best guide to the fluid drive ever.
One thing you left out about the Buick is what led to the styling cue that they've been using for almost 80 years now: the portholes. All that hydraulic slippage generates a huge amount of heat. Think of it as if it was a solid clutch that you would let slip to control your speed. The Dynaflow ran so hot that they needed a way to actively cool it. For the prototypes they put some large bore tubing around the transmission case and ran it to the fenders to help exhaust the heat. For production, they moved to liquid cooling (by running the oil up to a little radiator in the front), but the stylist in charge (probably not Harley Earle, but one of his staff) really liked the "porthole" look as a styling element. It's been with them ever since in one form or another. Maserati even borrowed it for their sedans.
i had a 50 chrysler highlander windsor with fluid drive and a big 250 cu in flathead 6, after i put on radial tires i could easily cruise at 65mph with the 1 barrel carb. To get around vapor lock in the hot AZ, heat i hooked up a inline 6volt electric fuel pump..Great car but with no power steering and no A/C i got rid of it after 10 years owning it. The snowbird who bought it shipped to Germany to drive on the autobahn. It only had 22,000 miles on it. The Fluid Drive with nondetergent 10 wt. oil (Like the tractors use) worked great!
Great video but it would've been nice to actually hear the engines, ironically dude says listen to that but he never stops talking so you can hardly hear the engines 😂. Otherwise the cars are absolutely beautiful.
To all you folks who think the post-war itineration Chrysler's Fluid Drive was a 3 speed with an underdrive unit attached and 1st gear blocked off, you are incorrect. The PRE-war M3 was as such, but the post-war M5 and M6 were nothing of the sort. They were 4 speed constant-mesh transmissions that automatically shifted between 1st and 2nd in Lo, 3rd and 4th in Hi/renamed Drive in later units. These were operated hydro-electrically. There was a vacuum operated 4 speed semi in 1941 and 42 for the DeSoto and 6 cyl Chrysler.
Gene windfield , was there somewhere, thanks for the vlog, good job still looking for investors to help me purchase the land and build my race track, lettttssss goooo people, race tracks are needed , thanks BigAl California.
Great and informative video, thanks for sharing the special transmissions from these beautiful old cars! Nice work! BTW, I think it's great to see a young person who truly appreciates these old but beautiful automobiles and the special features that could be had with them.
Cool demonstration. That Chrysler shifts pretty fast compared to mine. I might need to check my trans. haha. Also, when you shifted from Low to High range, your going right into 4th gear. The auto shift will only happen once. If you wanted to show 3rd gear, you can floor it in High range and it will automatically down shift into 3rd if you are not moving to fast already, or start from a stop in high range, it will down shift into 3rd at low speeds/a stop. Good practice not giving it gas while clutching, that doesn't really help with these cars just adds wear and heat...and shudders.
OG here. I recall my father and several other older men talk about these two transmissions when I was a kid. The consensus with most people of the day was that the GM hydro drive was truly automatic, and was therefore favored over the more complex fluid drive system of Chrysler.
would take the Chrysler with fluid drive based on my prior ownership of a 1954 Buick with Dynaflow. The Buick would go pretty fast but it conssumed gas more than anyother car I've owned including an Oldsmobile with a 455 V8 that I loved to drive faster than the law allowed. Also while I never owned a 40's Chrysler Ii did make several long drives in a 1953 Chrysler that literally felt like it was driving on air, had the smoothest power steering and the plushest and most comfortable interior I ever experienced.. Buick is nice and what my Dad would have called a car for a Lawyer or a Banker. But the Chrysler New Yorker was a 10 and I would rate the Buick as a 7 or 8 --nice and clearly better than a Ford or Chevy but not the equal of the Chrysler New Yorker. Your review was well done. Thanks.
My first car was a 51 Coronet with a Gyromatic trans and operated as described. The lowest gear I used to push the car when stuck in snow it was literally walking speed a idle.
The Chrysler Fluid Drive sounds the same as what they put in Dodges in the early 50s (which is obviously a Chrysler Corporation product) which was called the Gyromatic. At least it operated the same way, so I think it is the same transmission as in the Chrysler you drove but with a different name. Buick had the Dynaflow at first, and then in the early 60s had the Dual Path Turbine Drive on the smaller Buick Special and Skylark, which also involved changing the pitch of the torque converter blades - but it did it all at once in one shift rather than gradually changing it as you sped up. The idea of shifting the angle of the torque converter blades continued to be used into the mid 60s on some cars. The Jetaway in mid sized Oldsmobiles comes to mind. If you pushed the throttle down 2/3 of the way an electrical solenoid engaged that shifted the torque converter blades and gave you better acceleration. You do not have an Oldsmobile available here to test, but in 1940, Oldsmobile developed a fully automatic transmission that became known as the Hydramatic. I don't think that name was used in the beginning but later on in the 40s it was called this. This is eventually the automatic transmission that was used in ALL GM cars (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac), and eventually what all car companies modeled their automatic transmissions after. This includes the TorqueFlite which Chrysler Corp developed in the mid 50s. This was the easiest to drive (it was only available in Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles at first, which were higher priced cars) - but the driving ease is why it became the dominant type of automatic transmission produced. Chrysler Corporation cars did not have a fully automatic transmission until well after GM and Ford were offering them - so they were falling behind in the early 50s and eventually developed a fully automatic unit so they could continue to compete in the marketplace. By the way, the plaid interior in the Chrysler is known as the "Highlander" interior. Chrysler actually continued to offer a red and green plaid interior off and on into the early 60s, and even brought it back in the mid 1970s on the full sized New Yorker and Newport in 1975 and 1976.
The Chrysler is an updated pre WWII design. The Buick is the first actual new postwar Buick postwar design. The Buick 8 obviously has overhead valves but the Chrysler is a flathead engine. Both with huge steering wheels with about 6 turns lock to lock because power steering didn't come along until 1951 Chryslers.
If I am not mistaken, the term "Fluid Drive" on Chrysler products of the era referred to the fluid coupling, regardless of what transmission was behind it. Our '51 Dodge had a conventional 3-speed box behind the coupling, and I think the '46 Dodge that preceded it was the same. Dodge models with the 4-speed semiautomatic were badged "Gyro-Matic", while DeSoto used the term "Tip Toe Shift" or something like that. I remember a neighbor with a Buick with the original Dynaflow. When he stepped on the gas, the engine would rev up to nearly constant speed while the car eased away like a diesel-electric train.
1948 Chryslers had Fluid Drive, the torque converter came along a few years later in 1951. The difference is, fluid drive does not multiply torque. This was Chrysler's first effort at an automatic drive, dating back to 1939, the dawn of automatics, when few companies had them. It was sort of a cross between a manual trans and automatic with features of both. You need the clutch to shift into gear, after that they drive like an automatic. I would warm up the motor, shift into gear, release the clutch completely while parked, then drive away like a typical automatic. It was a very smooth, but simple rugged and trouble free system. Unlike some more complex systems like Hydramatic that were a nightmare to service and repair. I have owned, driven and serviced these transmissions. Almost always, any repair was easy and cheap. They are an electrically controlled transmission, and over the years the wiring can get frayed or broken. The trans can get low on oil. Electrical contacts need cleaning. All these things are easy to fix, at very little cost. The transmission and fluid drive are very simple, ruggedly made and largely trouble free.
Drag racing is why the rest of the world calls Americans stupid and we can only drive in a straight line. Build a rally car actually test your skills. Drag race when you have finally gave up on life. Nascar waited to long to pull themselves away from the boring eye gouging droning they created and now even though it's getting better and real car guys are rooting for them they will fail cause racing a straight line for 12 seconds proves nothing about car or driver.
