by MAURIZIO CALDERA
Today? You get on board, start the car and shift the gearbox. Automatic, manual, continuously variable sequential, robotised, there is something for all needs. The gears never end, from the five standard ratios for medium and compact cars with mechanical gearbox up to 6, 8 or even 9 for automatics, ratios which become infinite on the E-CVT, the continuously variable gearboxes now managed electronically.
Born on the Patent Motorwagen a year after the launch of the first example, the first gearbox had only two gears: it was little more than an experiment, real industrial production began, in fact, with the Ford Model T, produced in just over 15 million units and for the first time on an assembly line (at the time it was called a chain, but the term aroused negative reactions on a social level and for this reason it was renamed “line”). Launched in September 1908, the Model T had a two-speed forward and reverse gearbox.
The objectives of the gearbox (how many remember that diesel locomotives also have them fitted?) were aimed above all at optimizing the number of engine revolutions to make the most of its otherwise limited power. In fact, from the ¾ horsepower of the “embryonic” Mercedes, here we go to 22 HP!
And in Italy? Progress also arrived in the Bel Paese: from 1932 to 1937 Fiat produced the Balilla (construction code 508 A and B) first with a 3-speed gearbox, then also with a 4-speed gearbox and a total of 112,000 units.
The 4-speed gearbox therefore became a standard for all manufacturers and it was necessary to reach 1939 to find – on the Lancia Ardea Pentamarce – a 5-speed gearbox. A few more decades will then pass before the 6, 7 and 8 gears are reached which today are also found on C segment cars, especially if the gearbox is not manual, but automatic.
The inventor of the “national” automatic gearbox was the Italian Elio Trenta (Città della Pieve 1912/1934) who patented a “speed ratio for machines in general” in April 1932, i.e. the forerunner of the true automatic gearbox. own. The first automatic transmissions, however, were slow, with only three gears (sometimes with overdrive on the third), decreased performance and significantly increased consumption, a brake on their spread.
Elio Trenta was not the only one to be interested in this alternative, in 1931 Gaston Fleischel, a Swiss engineer, also perfected an automatic to improve the performance of the French Cotal electromagnetic system, and his patent was purchased in 1935 by Peugeot.
Even earlier, however, in 1921, the Canadian Alfred Horner Munro had invented an automatic transmission, patented in Canada in 1925, in England (1924) and in the USA (1927), while the Armenian Oscar Banker studied an automatic transmission for the General Motors in 1932, the same year as Elio Trenta's patent. And it will be a company of the GM group, Oldsmobile, that will mount the automatic transmission on the 1940 Model Year for a surcharge of 57 dollars, making this accessory indispensable on every future American car.
Furthermore, modern cars have been fitted with fully synchronized mechanical gearboxes for some years: is it silly to specify? Not so much, given that the first Fiat 500 required the “double debraiata” – pressing the clutch twice – to move from one gear to a lower one, and in times not so distant, this was in the second half of the last century.
The evolution of the species, however, has also profoundly modified automatics, now with double clutch for even faster operation in the “performance” engagements of an expert motorist with the manual. Furthermore, contrary to what happened at the beginning, the automatic has lower consumption.
Furthermore, the automatic is able to manage the pair of engines with very high power, such as Supercars or, in the case of industrial vehicles, 44-ton articulated vehicles, also these with more than 500 horsepower.
However, the continuously variable gearbox remains the prerogative of a few models. After a debut on the models of the Dutch DAF (cars frowned upon by the market in Italy, because they were foolishly considered as suitable only for the disabled) there was an attempt by Fiat with the Panda and Uno Selecta – then the robotized version arrived on the Panda and 500 – while today Nissan equips Micra and Juke with this device, but the panorama remains very limited.
Furthermore, the advent of new technologies has also opened up new horizons for automatic transmissions, which have always been viewed with suspicion by Italian motorists, who often define themselves as expert drivers, even if this could not always be classified as a truthful statement.
Having started to spread on luxury cars with a lot of horsepower, the contemporary automatic soon became available also on compact city cars, to the point that it is not difficult to find at least one automatic in a family's car fleet. Anyone who doesn't believe in the better quality of life with an automatic transmission should try it: an hour behind the wheel in traffic in a large and congested Italian city is enough to understand it, it's worth realizing.
by MAURIZIO CALDERA
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