I’m a very fortunate person in a number of ways, and one of those ways is the sheer number and variety of cars I’ve had the privilege of driving. Many of those cars had manual transmissions, and I’m happy to note that I’ve gotten to row gears in all sorts of different and strange ways: on floors and columns, sequentially, via all manner of spindly rods and fat stumpy knobs and bent levers and strange twisting umbrella handles and more. There’s a dazzling array of ways to move cogs together and apart, and I’m delighted to have tried so many.
But then I was sent this auction listing for a 1969 Mitsubishi 500, and I realized there’s at least one shifting configuration I don’t think I’ve ever experienced, and it’s on this humble little early Kei-class car. In fact, I’m not sure I can think of another car that does it this way at all?
The car itself is a pretty charming little thing; The Mitsubishi 500 was released in 1960, and was the first mass-produced production car Mitsubishi built after WWII. That seems a little late for that, but I’m not here to give Mitsubishi guff for being slow; that wasa difficult period for them. It was the first Japanese car to be tested in a wind tunnel!
It’s an appealing little thing, a simple and clever unibody design, with a rear-mounted inline-twin making about 21 horsepower.
The design has a number of interesting little quirks, too. For example, look at the padded luggage well behind the rear seat up there; you’d think there’d have been room for a trunk up front, but Mitsu decided to make one of these spare tire access hatches instead:
…along with a very Subaru 360-like deep package shelf under the dash that’s almost like a little trunk itself:
The rear is oddly minimalistic and cyclopean, with one central taillamp:
…which it is able to do because the turn indicators are on the B-pillars, like flashing ears:
Of course, I’m just making you wait for the real crux of all this here. The shifter. Specifically, the shift pattern. As I’ve said, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered this before. See if you can see why it’s so weird. I’m pretty sure you can:
Okay, it’s an H-pattern three-speed. That’s not so odd. But note how this picture is oriented: front of the car is toward the top. The shift diagram on the dash will make it more clear:
Yes, it’s rotated 90° from what we all expect. It’s more of an I-pattern than an H-pattern this way. You’re shifting sideways to get into gears instead of up and down. It just seems so weird! It must feel really strange until you get used to it, too. And, why? There must be some technical reason for doing it this way? Is it because the rear engine is transverse?
There’s been other transverse rear-engined cars, like the NSU Prinz, and they had a normally-oriented shifter. The closest example I can think of where a car had a shifter that felt like it was oriented in a different way may be the column shifter on a Trabant:
…but even that somehow doesn’t feel quite as weird? I drove a Trabant, and I was able to adapt to the shifting fairly quickly, perhaps because I already expect manual column shifters to be a bit outside my usual experience? But this Mitsubishi, with its floor-mounted stick seems like it should be what you expect, but then you realize that, unless you’re driving sidesaddle, it’s not.
Are there any other cars that use this kind of I-pattern shifter? I suspect there must be, but I can’t think of any? I really want to try one of these now!
For a while, we had some sort of electric golf cart on steroids inside our assembly plant we were using for tours. It was a 3-spd manual with reverse, but the shift pattern was backwards; 1st was lower right. IIRC, it was also right side drive. I’m sure neither of these was confusing.
I feel like the first-to-second shift would be the one that would mess me up the most. I don’t know why I feel this way but I think it would be way easier to comprehend if 2 was below 1 instead of having to go across the way.
A vehicle named a ‘500’, with a rear engine. Post WW2. Are we talking Fiat?
Shifter looks like an “I” Yeah yeah. Pffft.
What!? No comments on the rest of dash? Like the wildly optimistic widely spaced speedometer 0, 20, 40…100 kph or only available 2 action pull levers.
1) “Carpenter’s square” (lower one pulled out) or 2) the upper one “Wonder Woman” or maybe M if rotated. Wonder what that Might do.
Lights and Wipers?
and why is the 0-20 KPH have a red wave and 20-40 blue?
The red wave is for 1st gear, the blue wave is for 2nd gear, and the yellow wave is for 3rd gear.
VWs had markings on the speedometer to indicate the maximum speed in each gear. You would think people would just use their ears and sense of momentum to know when to shift, but apparently not everyone is that way.
Perhaps any 4 speed when you are driving sideways?
I’m seeing a new version of “Torch Drives” titled, “Torch Shifts” wherein illustrious adventurer Jason Torchinsky travels the world seeking out the strangest shifting methods and patterns in all the land. Although to be honest the man has already driven a Model T and a tank so there might not be too much further to go.
Until my brief experience with the 2CV last weekend, I think the weirdest transmission I’d driven was a semi-automatic Beetle.
I do still remember the first time I drove a 4 speed column shifter. It was so odd at first.
I agree with you. I learned to drive in a Valiant that was 3 on the tree. A friend had an older Mercedes (I don’t remember which model) that was 4 on the tree. Definitely took some time getting used to it the first couple times I drove the MB.
I think the only other place I might have seen a pattern even resembling that would be on an old tractor. And that might just be my brain making something up.
I do like the sort of pseudo-Italian styling. It’s like a Kei Fiat 500 clone.
The Italian mini car market was a huge influence on Japanese engineers.
If one thinks of the floor tunnel as a steering column lying flat, steering wheel forward, then it’s just a conventional three-on-the-tree pattern. Well, conventional that is aside from the whole bit about the tree having fallen.
Glad I used text search, this is what I thought of as well.
Well, a column mounted automatic shifter is also rotated 90 degrees from a centre mounted one, and nobody finds that strange.
I guess I could adjust to it quite easy. The two cars I drive most at the moment have steering wheels (and blinker stalks) on opposite sides.
And I found it quite easy going from english motorcycle orientation of gear and brake pedal, to german: They are opposite each other.
Isetta one is nice too, being a mirrored h pattern 4 speed sitting to your left.
“PUT IT IN ‘H’!!”
It makes me wonder whether someone in the writers’ room saw that Trabant diagram and that’s what inspired the joke.
Dang it, was going for a joke but it just looked more like spam than fun
instructions unclear, summoned an SRT Demon.
The Trabant inherited its shifter from the pre-war small DKWs via its predecessors the IFA F8 and the AWZ P70. The post-war West German DKW F89 had the same one.
I believe the reason is that not only the engine itself but also the transmission were mounted transversely, so the transmission is basically turned by 90 degrees and the shift pattern follows suit. Is the same true for the Mitsu 500?
Go home, shift pattern, you’re drunk.
If you really want a crazy shift pattern (and it’s also gated!) go ahead and look up the shift pattern for a John Deere 420. I’ve ground many gears in those trying to remember where all the shifts were.
This shift pattern hurts me in ways my ex could only dream of.
I wanna drive it.
That’s pretty strange, all right.At least it appears to be a gated shifter: look out, Ferrari!
My Hillman Minx had a column shifter with first where third would be, second in fourth position, third in first, and fourth in second place. A feature of using the RHD shift linkage, I suppose.
By contrast, my DS-21 automatique‘s horizontal shifter and my Renault 16’s five-on-the-tree seemed perfectly normal.
When will we get the Craziest-Shift-Pattern-EVAH feature, Torch?
A friend of mine bought an early ’70s C-10 pickup with a 3-speed on the floor. But the linkage was put together wrong by a previous owner with the 2-3 gears being inverted while the R-1 gears were where they were supposed to be.
So reverse was up and to the left like normal and 1st was down and to the left, but to get to 2nd, you had to slide the shifter up into neutral, and then over to the right and down where 3rd would normally be. Then straight up to get to 3rd.
That took a while to get used to driving.
Crazy Vaclav-san says put it in I.
The column shift on a Trabant was weird, agreed, but only took a couple of minutes to get used to. At least the gate on the Mitsu should guide you in the right direction, so long as the R is locked out when you’re in first.
Oh my, the doing the quick neutral wiggle would be so weird going fore and aft vs side to side
Is that technically a dogleg first gear if it’s on it’s side?
If we have to coin a term for this shift pattern, I humbly suggest “Praying Mantis”.
The Mitsu Massacre, cause that’s what this shifter is.
Not only I-pattern, but also the 1 and 2 are not aligned, instead it is 2-3. Apart from the 90 degree rotation that is similar to the 2CV pattern. I have shifted with side-column-, top-column- (DS-semi-automatic), dashboard- and floor-mounted-gear-selectors without any adjustment problems, but for me the 1-shift right-2 movement of the 2CV felt strange and it took some time to get used to. I have driven more dog-legged 1st gear cars, but with those you were able to skip 1st gear in normal circumstances.
For high speed right hand cornering upshifts: You just lean out with your body and elbow the shifter to the left for that sweet, hands-free 2-3 upshift.
I’m sure that car had loads of power and grip and would routinely make that shift a celebratory occasion.
Excellent observation and analysis. No notes.