Hearing about the manumission of slaves reminded me of manumatic transmission in cars. This was one of those short-lived innovations in British automotive technology in the 1950s. The cars had only two pedals on the floor - the brake and the accelerator; the clutch was operated partly by an electric switch on the gear lever.My father acquired one of these some time at the beginning of the sixties – I expect they could be bought very cheaply second hand. He needed to find an affordable replacement for a vehicle which had let him down very badly – sold to him by a member of his own family, so feelings were raw. He also had very firm views about which modern cars gave him head room sufficient to sit up straight & drive properly, something which this Austin offered.
Being my father he set about changing it to a normal, reliable transmission with a proper clutch pedal on the floor. I can remember some interesting weekend outings to help him forage for parts in scrap dealers & breakers yards.
My father was not a trained motor mechanic or engineer – he started as a respectable bank clerk but changed to radio & electrical engineering as a result of his war service. But there might have been some kind of genetic inheritance & a kind of getting your own back on behalf of his grandfather the master wheelwright who, with the coming of the motor car, saw the end of his first chosen trade.
The thing that puzzles me however is that I have absolutely no memory of what happened while the car was up on its blocks in the driveway – a period of several weeks if not months as I recall. Had we kept the old car – or did we all just have to rely on buses & shanks’s pony?
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