Triumph Had a Hydraulic Drive System in the 1950s It Seems

[Tuckerfan1053]

I don't think that it made it into production cars, but I did find a brief article from the time period. Of course, given how bent on self-destruction the British automotive industry was, anything's possible.

[Tatra Man]

Another great discovery. What other aces do you have up your sleeve???

By the way, would it trouble you divulge the date of that article?

[Tuckerfan1053]

Another great discovery. What other aces do you have up your sleeve???

You can see some of them here.

By the way, would it trouble you divulge the date of that article?

Mid to late 1950s (I don't have the magazine handy at the moment), so certainly well after the Tucker Corporation had come and gone. I don't have any other information on it than what's in the article, so no idea if anyone at Triumph had picked the idea up from the folks at Tucker or what.

[Ganaraska]

How about a link?

Not having seen the article yet I don't know what transmission you are talking about. I have a 1958 Standard Triumph sedan with automatic transmission, it is the Borg Warner T35 used by most English makes in those days.

The world's first production car with "hydraulic transmission", actually a fluid coupling and manual transmission, was the 1933 Lanchester "Fluid Flywheel" model.

This was the state of the art until the torque converter was invented. This was a fluid coupling with a 3d element added, a set of blades that diverted the flow of oil between the 2 existing sets of turbine blades.

It was the invention of the torque converter I believe, that got Harry Miller or Preston Tucker thinking that with the new torque converter you could eliminate the clutch, transmission, driveshaft and by using 2 torque converters (one on each end of the crankshaft) you could eliminate the entire rear axle and differential as well, and drive the wheels directly off the engine.

This would call for a rear mounted engine, of narrow flat 6 design, with a torque converter at each end of the crankshaft driving the wheels direct. With no gearing, it would have to be a very large displacement slow turning engine.

This I believe was the genesis of the Tucker Torpedo idea, a rear engine car with no clutch transmission driveshaft differential or rear axle, just 2 torque converters.

This is also the origin of the rumor that Tuckers wouldn't back up. There was not transmission, and no reverse gear. The torque converters had to be modified to make the stator blades reversible to make the wheels turn backwards and this was one of the technical problems that was never solved.

In the end the 589 engine and torque converter drive were abandoned for a transaxle design, the Y1 transaxle which was to be followed by a similar transaxle with automatic transmission and torque converter. The Cord transmission was used as a stopgap so they could get some cars running for test purposes.

[NailheadRocketman]

I would like to know more about the Y1 transaxle and the automatic that was supposed to go into Tuckers. All Ive seen is the Cord L18 transaxle with the Bendix vacuum shift. Hudson Terraplanes also used that same shifter(althought not the same gearbox) in the late thirties. I have never seen one Tucker with an automatic or torque converter.

Paul

[Tuckerfan1053]

As I recall, the Y1 and the automatic were used on the Tuckers at the end of the run. I think that they even used the same housing as the early models, so a visual inspection wouldn't necessarily reveal the differences. It's entirely possible that none of the transmissions have survived. It all depends upon how the cars were driven and maintained.