Back in November 2007 a topic cropped up that appears from time to time, on
just how many cars were equipped with overdrive for the North American
market, opinion being that it was quite small. As well as wondering why
this should be, I also wondered how it compared to the UK, where I'd have
said overdrive was more the rule than the exception. I live quite close to
BMIHT and enquired about access to the records and they said it would be
possible, although I didn't really want to have to go through all
half-million individual build records (although a few sample ones would be
fun). It occurred to me that 18V engines had prefixes which indicated
whether OD was fitted or not - presumably the engine/gearbox assembly was
ordered and received as a complete unit, so all I really needed was records
of the purchase orders for these from Abingdon to Engines branch. I *then*
realised that the information had been staring me in the face all along, as
it is included in Clausager in the Engine section.
They make interesting reading. From November 1973 (when the engine number
indicated whether OD was fitted or not) to the end of production there were
48,457 engines fitted to Home and non-North American export cars, of which
fully 97% had overdrive (they were standard in Home market cars from the 77
model year onwards). For North America from August 71 (engines for this
market were separately prefixed at an earlier date) of 186,542 engines only
17% had overdrive, which is a huge difference to other markets. There are
other interesting differences. When Canada had its own engines from August
1975, and California from June 1976, more than 25% had overdrive, while in
the same period the USA other than California only had 17%, another
significant difference. Even odder, when Japan had Californian spec for the
last few months of production, they were 100% equipped with overdrive.
So why did so few North American cars have overdrive? And why did Canada
and California have significantly more than the rest of the USA?
Full figures at http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/wn_gearsframe.htm and click on
'Overdrive - How popular was it?"
PaulH.
_______________________________________________
Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html
Mgs@autox.team.net
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/mgs
http://www.team.net/archive
|