I Don’t Think I’ve Ever Seen A Manual Shifter Quite Like This

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!