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edicehouse

edicehouse

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Jun 8, 2011
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Suffolk, VA
What is this? When did they stop putting them in cars?


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Timebandit said:
Head light Bright switch, dont know when they stopped :( Had to be after 79

Edit: Had a 79 Ford Galaxy 500, so i know the set up........and im only 33 :)
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They were replaced in most US cars during the 1970's and possibly into the early 80's. The Ford F-Series pickup trucks were the las vehicles to have them. Personally I thought they worked better than what we have now. Most people now never use their high beams because they forget to dim them when they do so they just leave them on low beam. I'm not sure how many accidents, if any are caused by that.
 
My '69 Dodge A100 had one of those. I greatly enjoyed the raw power in those high beams. Today's high beams do not compare. I miss them being so bright it kinda bleached everything out a little bit.
 
How about push button transmissions. As a kid, my Dad had a Crysler Valiant. My very 1st car was a 66 Renault 10 with a push button transmission. But the best known was the Edsel.
 
my brothers Corvair had push button automatic transmission. R N D1 and D2. It also had no parking brake, or rather none that worked.
 
That my friend, is a real dimmer switch, one that people would use. Don't know whose bright idea it was to move to the turn signal lever, but I have never gotten used to it.
 
Of course that was when they had six volt car batteries, reverb. white wall tires, no seat belts, and two dollars of gas would last you a week.
 
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alamocdc said:
Dimmer switches almost got put back in the floor within a few years of going to the steering column. Why, you ask? Because blondes kept getting their foot caught in the steering wheel!

DOH!
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I have to show my daughter this...blonde as a door knob but fully scholarshipped through a private university...go figure.:rolleyes:
 
I had a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser with Push Button transmission.
Some pre 1950 Ford pickups called for more front springs on the driver's side and no sun visor or windshield wiper on the passenger side.

Ray
 
David M said:
how about the picture of the floor bag for the washer fluid , or the push button , floor mounted starter switch
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My friend had a 1944 Ford GPW (WW2 Military Jeep) that had a floor started switch.

Yea I miss the floor dimmer switches. My first car was 1968 Ford Galaxy 500 2 door Lime Green:eek: UGLY CAR
 
My brother had a couple of early sixties Ramblers with pushbutton transmissions. Never had one on a car that I owned...2 speed automatics (Powerglide) 3 speed automatics, 3 on the column, 4 on the floor, 5 on the floor, 4 speed automatics, Now my wifes car is a 6 speed automatic and I had automatics both on the column and on the floor - but no push buttons. I think I even had one they called a semiautomatic where you manually changed gears but no clutch...If I'm not mistaken that was on a 1980 Plymoth TC3 but I wouldn't take bets that might have been 4 on the floor.
 
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Smitty37 said:
My brother had a couple of early sixties Ramblers with pushbutton transmissions. Never had one on a car that I owned...2 speed automatics (Powerglide) 3 speed automatics, 3 on the column, 4 on the floor, 5 on the floor, 4 speed automatics, Now my wifes car is a 6 speed automatic and I had automatics both on the column and on the floor - but no push buttons. I think I even had one they called a semiautomatic where you manually changed gears but no clutch...If I'm not mistaken that was on a 1980 Plymoth TC3 but I wouldn't take bets that might have been 4 on the floor.
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I REALLY miss my old column shifter.
 
Drstrangefart said:
Smitty37 said:
My brother had a couple of early sixties Ramblers with pushbutton transmissions. Never had one on a car that I owned...2 speed automatics (Powerglide) 3 speed automatics, 3 on the column, 4 on the floor, 5 on the floor, 4 speed automatics, Now my wifes car is a 6 speed automatic and I had automatics both on the column and on the floor - but no push buttons. I think I even had one they called a semiautomatic where you manually changed gears but no clutch...If I'm not mistaken that was on a 1980 Plymoth TC3 but I wouldn't take bets that might have been 4 on the floor.
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I REALLY miss my old column shifter.
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The Semiautomatic I had was called Torque Drive and it was on a 1969 Chevy Nova that we had at the same time we had the '80 TC3 - that's why I was confused. The transmission was based on the 2 speed powerglide but cost less.
 
After they stopped installing them in vehicles. We used them for Mic switches in the Undercover vehicles when I worked for a law enforcement agency. An officer could rest his foot on it while interviewing a subject seated in the car and record the conversation. Don't know if the still use it or not, things have advanced with new technology that makes the floor mounted dimmer switch obsolete.
 
Anyone remember the radio mute buuon that was on the floor? My dad used to tell us that if we touched our nose the radio would go off--------and it did.
 
How about the big luxury 'boats' that had an electronic sensor to dim light when you met oncoming traffic? Don't remember which models had these. I seem to remember they didn't always work so well.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin
 
My first car was a 1961 Olds Super 88. It had one switch on the floor for the headlight dimmer and one to change the stations on the radio. It also had power wing windows.

Ken
 
ttpenman said:
How about the big luxury 'boats' that had an electronic sensor to dim light when you met oncoming traffic? Don't remember which models had these. I seem to remember they didn't always work so well.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin
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I know some late '50s Caddys had them. They used photo sensors and sometime did not work at all well being either to sensitive or not sensitive enough. Later versions had an adjustment to control the sensitivity - as I recall it didn't work all that well either.
 
Alzey said:
David M said:
how about the picture of the floor bag for the washer fluid , or the push button , floor mounted starter switch
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My friend had a 1944 Ford GPW (WW2 Military Jeep) that had a floor started switch.

Yea I miss the floor dimmer switches. My first car was 1968 Ford Galaxy 500 2 door Lime Green:eek: UGLY CAR
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My high school English teacher had a '56 Buick that had the starter built into the accelerator... to start the car you had to push the accelerator all the way to the floor, then let up... she asked me to move it once and I didn't know how to start it.:mad:
 
Many cars through the 40s and into the 50s had the starter's on the floor but we never had one where it was tied to the accelerator. I do remember several that had a pull switch for the choke and another that was the throttle - you didn't have to keep your foot on the gas you could set the throttle.
 
Smitty37 said:
Many cars through the 40s and into the 50s had the starter's on the floor but we never had one where it was tied to the accelerator. I do remember several that had a pull switch for the choke and another that was the throttle - you didn't have to keep your foot on the gas you could set the throttle.
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In 1948 or 49, my family moved from East Texas to West Texas and my dad had an old Model A Ford that had a throttle and I think the other lever was for setting the spark... I was only about 7 then, so don't remember exactly... just remember he was showing Mom that if he moved the levers just right he could make the car backfire... he did it once too often and blew out the muffler and tail pipe...

When we moved he had a 10 or 15 foot stock trailer hooked to the rear and all our worldly possessions stacked in the trailer... the car was a two seater coupe without a rumble seat that we hauled two adults and 3 kids ... I road all the way to west Texas laying on the back of the seat, with my older sister sitting next to Mom and the door, my younger sister sitting astraddle of the shift lever... after we got moved, Dad picked up a burned out body of a 4 seat sedan and switched the bodies on the frame... he lined the inside of the 4 seater with masonite and painted the body black with a brush... served us well, but we probably looked like the Beverly Hillbillies coming down the road, just without the money, we were share-croppers and got by on very little. In 1952 or 53 we must have had a good crop 'cause he bought a putrid green '41 Ford sedan... that same year we moved into town and Dad went to work for a roofing company and actually had a regular weekly paycheck.
 
TellicoTurning said:
Smitty37 said:
Many cars through the 40s and into the 50s had the starter's on the floor but we never had one where it was tied to the accelerator. I do remember several that had a pull switch for the choke and another that was the throttle - you didn't have to keep your foot on the gas you could set the throttle.
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In 1948 or 49, my family moved from East Texas to West Texas and my dad had an old Model A Ford that had a throttle and I think the other lever was for setting the spark... I was only about 7 then, so don't remember exactly... just remember he was showing Mom that if he moved the levers just right he could make the car backfire... he did it once too often and blew out the muffler and tail pipe...

When we moved he had a 10 or 15 foot stock trailer hooked to the rear and all our worldly possessions stacked in the trailer... the car was a two seater coupe without a rumble seat that we hauled two adults and 3 kids ... I road all the way to west Texas laying on the back of the seat, with my older sister sitting next to Mom and the door, my younger sister sitting astraddle of the shift lever... after we got moved, Dad picked up a burned out body of a 4 seat sedan and switched the bodies on the frame... he lined the inside of the 4 seater with masonite and painted the body black with a brush... served us well, but we probably looked like the Beverly Hillbillies coming down the road, just without the money, we were share-croppers and got by on very little. In 1952 or 53 we must have had a good crop 'cause he bought a putrid green '41 Ford sedan... that same year we moved into town and Dad went to work for a roofing company and actually had a regular weekly paycheck.
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I believe you're right, the extra lever was for spark. I saw cars like that but the only ones owned by the family that had it were before my time.
 
My 51 ford had 2,one was a starter and one was the dimmer switch,I do remember when
they were moved to the directional switch,kept getting my foot caught in the steering wheel every time I had to hit the hi beam.
 
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