read all of the comments, most are bs... very few working hydraks exist today because the hydrak used a hydraulic torque converter that was air-cooled and self-contained with no external fluid cooling system. because of this, you always had to keep the transmission in neutral when the car was not moving in order to keep the torque converter from overheating. if you try to drive it in creeping-along traffic where your foot is mostly on the brake more than it is on the accelerator, or if you try to hold your position on a hill using the throttle you will overheat and damage the torque converter very quickly. hydrak cars had an overheat idiot light on the dash to let the owner know that a big repair bill was in their future... but the reality was that very few of these cars were repaired and saved because in 1975 a new hydrak torque converter was $1875. individual component parts of the torque converter were not available. so most of the hydrak cars ended up being junkyard converted to a conventional manual clutch. as a driving experience, the hydrak is actually a very nice automatic clutch system that always shifts smoothly both upshifting and downshifting no matter what accelerator you throw at it. it's not for racing, but it's really not bad.
Awesome!! I'm surprised at how well this works. Old semi-auto transmissions and early automatics are fascinating pieces of machinery.
read all of the comments, most are bs... very few working hydraks exist today because the hydrak used a hydraulic torque converter that was air-cooled and self-contained with no external fluid cooling system. because of this, you always had to keep the transmission in neutral when the car was not moving in order to keep the torque converter from overheating. if you try to drive it in creeping-along traffic where your foot is mostly on the brake more than it is on the accelerator, or if you try to hold your position on a hill using the throttle you will overheat and damage the torque converter very quickly. hydrak cars had an overheat idiot light on the dash to let the owner know that a big repair bill was in their future... but the reality was that very few of these cars were repaired and saved because in 1975 a new hydrak torque converter was $1875. individual component parts of the torque converter were not available. so most of the hydrak cars ended up being junkyard converted to a conventional manual clutch.
as a driving experience, the hydrak is actually a very nice automatic clutch system that always shifts smoothly both upshifting and downshifting no matter what accelerator you throw at it. it's not for racing, but it's really not bad.
plaisir de conduire
nice sox!
Has more wood inside than a Rolls-Royce.
The wood trim looks amazingly good. How did you do that? And how fast does your car drive on the highway? Thanks for posting.
I bought one of these about three weeks ago. It has a Hydrak also. It's a 1959.
Mum had a Hydrak equipped model. She had a lot of trouble with it. Of course she was tough on cars.
NEAT!!!