Was the 355 the first street car with paddle shift?

Ferrari street car?? or including other manufactorers??

 

Yup!

 

Let's see, Ferrari had a Valeo shift in the Mondial, but I think u still had to shift the gear lever. So, yes, 355 is a paddle first.

 

I did read that Ferrari is credited as the first to use paddle shifts in street cars.

 

You mean the Evo X? Apparently that isn't a true 6-spd, more of an automatic that can hold gears. I haven't seen the tech details, just heard grumblings from the Mitsu guys...But it does have paddles!!! So that raises the point, not all paddle shift cars are in the same league -

 

Very true...you can now get a Honda Fit with 'Paddle Shifters'...
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Porsche was way ahead of Ferrari with the clutchless shifter. They sold it in the 60s if I remember right.

 

Actually, I think the tiptronic from Porsche came first, but it was just an automatic that you could manually shift instead of a manual with a computerized clutch. I don't know if the shift control made it to the steering wheel before the F1 came out though.

 

Early 70's. It was called the 'sportomatic'. They were pretty reliable too!

 

Paddles: I'm thinking Ferrari was the first. Porsche had Tiptronic first but it had buttons.

[Edit] It looks to me that after some research, the Porsche came with button controlled Tiptronic after Ferrari, but it's tough to tell based on the model years. 1995 for Ferrari, 1996 for Porsche.

 

Not sure who was first, both BMW and Ferrari introduced the same style
of transmission gear change in the 1997 model year.

Ferrari on the F355, BMW on the European M3.

Jim C.

 

Bmw had a Steering Wheel controled gearbox in the late 80's and early 90's M5. It was a 5 gear automtatic paddle controled.

 

Yeah, but I think you have to define what you are talking about to define
who "was first".

F1 and SMG are electro-hydraulically controlled manual transmissions where
both the clutch and the transmission gear selection are controlled by special
hydraulic solenoids which themselves are controlled by the driver via an
electronic control unit.

AFAIK, only BMW and Ferrari have had these as early as model year 1997.

Jim

PS: Paddle or button controlled AUTOMATIC transmissions have existed
for a very very long time on many classic American cars.

 

Ferrari was not only the first street car to feature a semi-automatic manual transmission, but it was the first to introduce this to Formula 1. It is so universal now in many forms of motorsport to see F1/paddle shift transmissions that it is often forgotten that Ferrari was the pioneer of this. They did make kind of a big deal about this in 1998 when they introduced the F1 shift option. As expected, the other manufacturers followed suit with either real semi-automatic transmissions or at least paddles for their (torque convertor) true automatic transmissions.

By the way, this is my first post on F chat. I recently joined the brotherhood by purchasing a 1998 355B F1. Thanks to all the members for tips on trouble spots, anticipated costs, interior issues and beautification, etc. Great web site.

John

 

Excellent points, and there is a very large difference between an F1 paddle shifted car that still utilizes a clutch, and a button or paddle shifted automatic transmission - the latter being much less technically involved.

 

Ferrari and Magnetti Marelli combined invented it. The sold it to BMW and Lamborghini almost right away. Porsch followed with their automatic slushbox garbage. All the real systems save Audi are MM licensed.



The first clutchless manual I am aware of was from Mercedes Benz in the 50's.

 

Wait, we're all wrong on the clutchless manual. Gotta love the Internet. Chrysler!?!?!? Then Citroën!?!?!?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_transmission

It also appears there were paddle shifters in racing cars long before the Formula 1 Ferraris.