File:1958 Edsel Citation Teletouch Transmission (18997339216).jpg

From Wikipedia:

When the 1958 Edsel launched in the late summer of 1957, the Edsel became the first and only Ford division to launch an electro-mechanical push-button transmission system, which it trademarked as Teletouch. Teletouch placed the transmission buttons in a ring within the center of the steering wheel. Edsel's marketing department promoted the Teletouch as a logical progression in the process of making the steering wheel the central command center for controlling cars. Marketing also pointed out that more of the dashboard view was unrestricted to the driver with the gear handle removed. Edsel even issued a Teletouch "face-mask" for dealers to wear and pass out as an advertising premium promoting the system to would-be buyers.

While a standard gear selector was available as a reduced-cost option for the automatic transmission on the Edsel Ranger, Pacer and station wagon models, Corsair and Citation models came standard with Teletouch.

In theory, the idea of the Teletouch system made sense, but in its execution, the system quickly became the bane of the Edsel and its owners. Many new car buyers, and most automotive writers, found Teletouch to be a gimmick, while others found it distracting or confusing. Despite its marketing talking points, it required the driver to remove a hand from the steering wheel rim to push a center-pod button.

Reliability proved poor due to the servo motor's hot, wet and dirty operating environment between the bell housing and the exhaust pipe just above the road surface, and the somewhat troublesome associated relays, switches, wiring and connectors. On the other hand, the wiring inside the steering column did not move and was extremely reliable, since the pod containing the buttons did not turn with the wheel. The electric control current flowed through a set of slip rings and brush contacts, while the Teletouch buttons were held in the correct position with Neutral at 12 o'clock through a set of planetary gears in the steering column. The steering wheel was directly coupled to the steering linkage as with conventional steering columns.

Eventually, all push-button transmission selectors became a safety issue due to lack of industry-wide standardization. In addition, since the 1920s the center of the steering wheel had typically held the horn button. While some cars of the late 50s had horn rings, some drivers instinctively hit the steering wheel center in an emergency, sometimes causing them to either damage the controls or cause an unexpected, hazardous gear change (occasionally causing transmission damage). The Edsel's system included an electro-hydraulic inhibitor switch activated by transmission fluid pressure which virtually eliminated the possibility of this happening.

The single circumstance under which a Teletouch could be put into gear with the car moving at greater than three to five miles per hour was if the neutral button was depressed first, thereby removing hydraulic pressure from the inhibitor switch, and then the reverse or park button pushed. These actions would, as a result, either shear off the parking pawl or suddenly set the rear wheels turning in the reverse direction, effectively locking them up against the road surface and possibly damaging the reverse bands in the transmission. Ironically, the failed Autolite Packard system protected against this set of circumstances by locking out not only reverse and park, but also neutral while the car was moving with any significant speed.

For the 1959 model year, Edsel dropped Teletouch as an option, and began the process of abandoning the automotive market by dropping its Mercury-based cars, and eliminating the Citation, and Pacer cars as well as the Bermuda and Roundup station wagons.

Steering wheel-mounted transmission controls have made a comeback since the mid-1990s introduction of Porsche's Tiptronic system, although the controls for the selection of park, reverse, and neutral are almost always located elsewhere. They also invariably have the buttons or "paddles" for the functions that are on the steering wheel quite near the rim, for true "both-hands-on-the-wheel" functionality.

MSRA “BACK TO THE 50′s” 42nd Annual June 19-21, 2015 State Fairgrounds St. Paul Minnesota