Why Drive and not Forward?

Mar 20, 2008 12 Replies
S

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?


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A

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:

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"...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

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M

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.

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A

Dunno. I'm still trying to figure out why some oil caps say OIL on them and why some say 710 on them.

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S

The 710 caps are for British right hand drive imports.... Gee you didn't know that!! ;->

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A

But I've seen them on brand new domestics fresh off the car hauler.

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L

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

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S

I thought R was when you wanted to Ram the car behind you?

--scott

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S

"Engage the drivegear" terminology carried over from something else?

Dave

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L

Maybe that's where I screwed the pooch!!

Lugnut

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J

That's what the F is for.

John.

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L

Maybe I should just keep working with a stick.

Lugnut

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S

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.....

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