Teletouch

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Teletouch was the trade name for the transmission controls found on many Edsel brand automobiles manufactured by the Edsel and Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln (M-E-L) Divisions of the Ford Motor Company. The significance of the Teletouch systems lies in its conception, design and symbolism for American automobiles produced in the 1950s, and the gadgets designed into them.

[edit] Conception

Conception of the Edsel began in the early 1950s when Ford Motor Company attempted to outflank industry leader General Motors through altering its production, pricing and its make and model ranges. One of the results of this plan was the E-car program that resulted in the ill-fated Edsel.

From the beginning, the Edsel was promised to be something very different from the cars that Detroit was turning out at the time. However development costs required that Edsel share the basics of other established Ford brands on the market. In this climate, the Edsel emerged as a five model, three-wheelbase automobile line. Senior Edsels would share its chassis with Mercury, junior models would share their chassis with Ford passenger vehicles, and station wagons would share chassis and body structure with Ford's station range.

The distinction offered by the Edsel, therefore, was in the styling details. While the famed 'horse collar' grille and 'boomerang' tail lights made the Edsel visually unique, the Teletouch transmission and saucer like spinning speedometer emerged as two of the better-remembered interior details.

[edit] Design

Chrysler Corporation automobiles introduced pushbutton automatic transmission controls for their Powerflite and Torqueflite transmissions for the 1956 model year. Instead of the traditional placement of a gear selector on the column, Chrysler's system mounted the gear buttons in dashboard pods to the left of the steering wheel, becoming the first U.S. carmaker to offer such a system. Packard also introduced a steering-column-mounted electro-mechanical pushbutton transmission control pod in its "Touch Button Ultramatic" in 1956. Lincoln-Mercury, a Ford division, followed suit with its purely mechanical push-button transmission control system in 1957.

When the 1958 Edsel launched in the fall 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 an option for the automatic transmission on the in Edsel Ranger, Pacer and station wagon models, Corsair and Citation models came standard with Teletouch.

[edit] Execution

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. 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 electronic control current flowed through a set of slip rings and brush contacts, while the steering wheel motion was transmitted through a set of planetary gears to the steering gear input shaft

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 practically eliminated the possibility of this happening.

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.

Also see: Edsel

Edsel		(edit )
	Models: Bermuda | Citation | Corsair | Pacer | Ranger | Roundup | Villager See also: Ernest Breech | Ford Motor Company | Comet | Robert McNamara | Marianne Moore | The Edsel Show | Teletouch