<VV> top loaders

[Padgett]

>the factory supplied tranny is a Ford top loader!

Actually it made perfect sense to the General though surprised to hear 
about one on a Buick Estate Wagon, thought the THM-400 was standard.

On lesser cars (Chevrolet, Pontiac), GM used the Saginaw three and four 
speed manual transmissions on engines up to 350ish CID and the Muncie Four 
speed was expected to go with big engines however the marketting types 
insisted on a "loss leader" for all lines with a three speed manual to keep 
the list price down (automatic or four speed was about a $250 option at the 
time). Meanwhile the M-13 Muncie "HD" 3-speed was marginal on engines over 
402 cid

So GM did not really have a transmission rated for massive torque, yet knew 
the coming emissions regulations were going to eliminate the problem. It 
just did not make sense to tool up for a new transmission that would only 
be used for a few years. In fact by 1978 the Muncie plant was making 
Saginaws and four speeds were mostly from Borg-Warner if the engine was 
over 350 cid (e.g. 1978 Firebird T/A)..

Rightly thinking that few in their right mind in 1970 would buy a 455 
engine with a three speed yet faced with the marketeer's insistance, some 
divisions decided to avoid the tooling costs for a new heavy(ier) duty 
passenger three speed and just bought the existing top loader from Ford in 
very small quantities. Pontiac had started using this transmission some 
years earlier and it had worked for them.

As mentioned have heard of a few other lines  (even one 1970 Grand Prix) 
with the top-loader trans but is the first time I heard of a Buick wagon 
built that way.

Of course one of the oddities of American cars of the sixties was that 
those with small engines needing more gears were more likely to have a 
3-speed while monster engines that could torque their way anywhere usually 
received four speeds.

Padgett