What's a Semi-Automatic Trans?

I was just looking over a 1969 Maverick brochure and see a "Semi-Automatic Transmission" as an option...What was that?

 

they had a manual valve body and had to be shifted between gears

 

They seem to be very rare.
When the subject comes up, only 2 or 3 people say they have ever seen one with their own eyes.

 

ya i think it was only a 69.5 and/or 70 option

 

Never saw one myself...MOPAR had one in the lat 40's-early 50's, but it was a manual 3 speed with a clutch and torque converter. It was developed for tanks during WWII

 

And all these years I thought it was an automatic transmission for a Mack
Dan

 

Sounds like the same thing that Volkswagen called an Automatic Stickshift.

 

I do know it's a regular C4 without a servo and a manual (simple) valve body.
It was a cost saver, not so much an option.
It also was no specialty piece with a clutch or other gizmos.
It's just a C4 that you have to shift manually as you might do occasionally. Just with this one, you don't have the ability to throw it in D and go.

 

Now we spend hundreds of dollars to get the manual shift valves.....
I think they were just a little ahead of the times.

 

Actually, the VW had a electric operated clutch, operated by a microswitch in the gear knob. It also had a torque converter. You couldn't rest your hand on the gear knob going down the road, it would disengage the clutch!