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Relative to Packs, which is easier to drive: shift on the floor or column? Or does it matter?

I learned to drive with the shift on the column because both my parents had cars with shifts on the columns. Later, I got a car with a shift on the floor, and I can't say that I preferred one over the other. However, having the shift on the column did make for it roomier in the knee area and having to reach over and pick stuff up off the passenger-side floor-board.

Kind regards
Garrett Meadows

it doesn't matter. Now that 1940's column shifter has it's issues if worn, but it's not because it's on the column

It depends on the vehicle. Old Corvettes - good to poor. Hurst shifters - good. Jaguar E-type - excellent, Dino Ferrari - excellent. Old worn Packards - column shift - poor. Old Cadillacs - very good, Old Chevys - fair to good.

When I was really little, Dad bought one of those generic floor shifter kits for our '47 Clipper. I have no idea why he did that.

I had occasion to drive a '63 Mercedes 220 with a FOUR-speed shifter on the column. Interesting!

Personally, although I know why manufacturers went w/column shifters, I prefer 'em on the floor.

MIDan, that shift kit must have had an interesting shift pattern. My guess is it was backwards from normal (1st up, Rev. down; and 2nd down, High up) because of the shifting arms being on the top of the case. That is unless your dad installed some idler arms to change direction of the motion from the shift lever. Maybe someone else here can comment on what I have just written, but it seems this is the way it would have been.

(o{}o)

I can think of several European cars that had 4 forward speed shifters on the column, the 2 liter Triumph roadsters 1948 to 50, and some postwar Singers come to mind. First gear was where reverse would normally have been on a 3-speed and the others followed in the usual pattern. There was always some sort of interlock for Reverse, in the Triumph it was done by pulling outward on the knob at the end of the column, pushing the stick rearward and down. Column shift with 4-forward speeds was more common than you might think.

Old Simca Aronde had 4 on the column also.

As did Mercedes Benz.

(o{}o)

Ditto for 404 Peugeots. Standard 3 speed on the column, but then push forward and down for 4th.

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JW, it's entirely possible that Dad did that. I was 6-7-8 years old at the time (early 1960s), so I have no idea at all how he did it, just that he managed to install it...

I DO know that after he bought a brand-new 1965 Checker Marathon, he quit driving the Packard. In 1968, he traded it and 3 other cars for a running, driving Renault Dauphine, of all things...