"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
05/15/2016 at 17:34 • Filed to: None
1
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"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
05/15/2016 at 17:34 • Filed to: None | 1
| 9 |
A Peugeot 402
A Ford Vedette
A Delahaye 235 (by Chapron in this case). Yes, it looks amazing. Yes, it’s valued accordingly.
They had, or were available with in the case of the first two, something exotic in the way of transmissions. They were all made in France which is significant.
BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
> Cé hé sin
05/15/2016 at 17:55 |
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My guess is they were the first european cars to have an automatic gearbox, since that was probably the only exotic gearbox in that era.
kanadanmajava1
> Cé hé sin
05/15/2016 at 17:58 |
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They came with an optional Cotal gearbox?
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Cé hé sin
> kanadanmajava1
05/15/2016 at 18:05 |
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Is indeed the right answer. I’ve found a description of it, but it’s in French .
As I understand it (they name the various parts differently in French so the sun wheel becomes a planet and the planet gears become satellites), it had two epicyclics, each of which provided a different degree of reduction.
First gear: both gear trains working in series
Second gear: only the lower gear train in use
Third gear: only the higher one
Fourth gear: direct drive
No built in reverse so you had a mechanical inverser mounted before the gearbox giving four forward and four (lower) reverse gears. Using first reverse was a bad idea as the increased torque would twist the shafts in the box.
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Cé hé sin
> BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
05/15/2016 at 18:12 |
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Nearly. They had the Cotal box, a semi automatic using electromagnets rather than hydraulics to operate the brake bands. Start with a clutch then use a little electric switch to change gear without the clutch.
There were a
lot
of weird transmissions back then.
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BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
> Cé hé sin
05/15/2016 at 18:13 |
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That actually sounds like quite an efficient gearbox!
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kanadanmajava1
> Cé hé sin
05/15/2016 at 18:15 |
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I have found a description English too. I might be able to find it again.
I hope I can own something nice with a Cotal someday.
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Cé hé sin
> BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
05/15/2016 at 18:27 |
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It does, doesn’t it? Apparently it had its own built in dynamo and drew only a small current.
Then again, it was heavy, expensive and unreliable and still used a clutch to start so as soon as conventional automatics became available it vanished. In addition to that France taxed large cars out of existence after WW2 and it was too expensive to be popular on downmarket cars. Peugeot didn’t use it after the war and the (upmarket) Ford Vedette went out of production.
So far as I know nobody has returned to the idea since.
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Cé hé sin
> kanadanmajava1
05/15/2016 at 18:31 |
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A Ford Vedette is I think your only choice. They can be bought for sensible prices whereas Delahayes, Delages and the like are in the millions now.
There’s a guy in the Netherlands selling a Cotal box - on its own - for €8,000. He says it works!
PS:
Found one!
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Cé hé sin
> kanadanmajava1
05/15/2016 at 18:39 |
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The section above the picture refers to the reversing mechanism, the section after the picture is the four speed box.