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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Maintenance and Repair / March 2008Why Drive and not Forward?
Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one posed to me by a neighbor. How did PRNDL become the standard nomenclature for automatic transmissions? P- Park - Makes sense because that it what it does. R- Reverse - Same as above. N- Neutral - Ditto D- Drive, Well you do "drive " the vehicle but why not F- Forward? L- Low (or some variant of low) Lowest forward gear. I didn't have a real definite answer for her. The closest I came up with was that it was easier to say "Prindle" than "Prinfle" So anyone got some time to kill?  SignatureSteve W. Near Cooperstown, New York > D- Drive, Well you do "drive " the vehicle but why not F- Forward? Good question! I honestly don't know the answer, but this page about the Hydra-Matic suggests narrowing down the search to the immediate postwar years: http://members.tripod.com/starchief57/articles.htm#hydra "...N-H-L-R, in 1946 it was changed to N-Dr-Lo-R. Later it was changed to P-R-N-D-L to reflect the addition of a "PARK" feature. " My guess on *why* would be that D-for-drive looks the least like the other letters. I've crossposted to rec.autos.antique in search of somebody who has either researched or personally remembers those early days of automatics... Cheers, --Joe > > D- Drive, Well you do "drive " the vehicle but why not F- Forward? > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Cheers, > --Joe Assuming that you are not from that era, I will point out that people used the term "first" for the startin gff forward gear and all those learning anew might think of F as first, not forward. Most people going backwards don't think of that as driving, but backing (up). f you want someone to back into a parking spot you don't say 'Drive into that spot." - you say "Back into that spot." Just some thoughts from an OAP..... > Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one > posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > So anyone got some time to kill? Just a guess but if you used F for Forward instead of D for Drive you would have PRNFL, were the F could be mistaken for First not Forward. > Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one > posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > So anyone got some time to kill? Dunno. I'm still trying to figure out why some oil caps say OIL on them and why some say 710 on them. >> Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one >> posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Dunno. I'm still trying to figure out why some oil caps say OIL > on them and why some say 710 on them. The 710 caps are for British right hand drive imports.... Gee you didn't know that!! ;-> SignatureSteve W. > >> Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one > >> posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > The 710 caps are for British right hand drive imports.... Gee you didn't > know that!! ;-> But I've seen them on brand new domestics fresh off the car hauler. > The 710 caps are for British right hand drive imports.... Gee you didn't > know that!! ;-> no, silly, that's the australian terminology. >Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one >posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > >So anyone got some time to kill? The terminology is a left over from the early days of automatics when we had P for push, L for leave out, D for drag and R for race, N for nuthin'. It cost me my allowance forever when I decided to Drag the old man's Packard. All hell broke loose when I shifted to Race. Lugnut >The terminology is a left over from the early days of >automatics when we had P for push, L for leave out, D for >drag and R for race, N for nuthin'. It cost me my allowance >forever when I decided to Drag the old man's Packard. All >hell broke loose when I shifted to Race. I thought R was when you wanted to Ram the car behind you? --scott Signature"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." >>The terminology is a left over from the early days of >>automatics when we had P for push, L for leave out, D for [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >I thought R was when you wanted to Ram the car behind you? >--scott Maybe that's where I screwed the pooch!! Lugnut >>>The terminology is a left over from the early days of >>>automatics when we had P for push, L for leave out, D for [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Maybe that's where I screwed the pooch!! That's what the F is for. John. >>>>The terminology is a left over from the early days of >>>>automatics when we had P for push, L for leave out, D for [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > >John. Maybe I should just keep working with a stick. Lugnut > Ever get one of those HUH? questions stuck in your head? Here's the one > posed to me by a neighbor. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Steve W. > Near Cooperstown, New York "Engage the drivegear" terminology carried over from something else? Dave
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