A pretty old car

[GeneL]

They had a horrible, typically British, transmission.

Almost bought a TD, an XK120 and a XK150 back in the '50s and '60s, but couldn't warm up to driving without syncro on first gear.

That's how I ended up with my lovely Alfa Veloce Spider

[davester]

[quote GeneL]They had a horrible, typically British, transmission.

Almost bought a TD, an XK120 and a XK150 back in the '50s and '60s, but couldn't warm up to driving without syncro on first gear.

That's how I ended up with my lovely Alfa Veloce Spider
I think you're confusing "british" with "vintage". The MG you're talking about was built in the '50s, compared to the Alfa which was built in the late '60s and '70s.

Pretty much all early vehicles had non-synchro 1st gear, no matter what their national origin. All of the MGs, austin healeys, etc had all-synchro after about 1965 (and the Alfa Veloce Spyder wasn't even built until 1966. In fact, from my experience driving italian and british sports cars, I'd say that the brit transmissions were crisp-shifting dreams compared to the somewhat notchy vague italian ones.

In any case, I had a '65 Austin Healey Sprite with non-syncro 1st tranny. It was absolutely no big deal. It was seldom necessary to downshift into first while moving, and when I needed to it was easily accomplished by double clutching, a skill learnable in a day.

[GeneL]

Perhaps, during the period (late '40s and early '50s) of the TCs and TDs, many of the European sports cars were pretty much all non-syncro, but not most American cars. The XK 150 (1958-1961) was a contemporary of my Alfa and still had the same (to me) crappy transmission.

Of course, slowing down to a stop in order to get into first gear, compared to just shifting down just didn't appeal to me. My first wife had an MGA which was a real POS with the non-syncro first gear. I hated driving it. Using engine torque/combined with gear selection to control speed rather than braking appealed more to me than having to learn how to double clutch. For me, this technique only worked some of the time. I do admit that I wasn't a good learner of the technique, but why bother when there were equally appealing cars that didn't require it.

As I always say, "that's just my opinion, I could be wrong."

GeneL

[lost in space]

Not having synchro in 1st gear in itself is not much of a problem. It just meant you had to be standing still to engage 1st, or you'd get a bit of a graunch going into gear, unless you had your double-clutch chops down. The real problem with non-synchro 1st was that they were usually straight-cut gears, which made them engage more easily when you were moving or didn't double-clutch right. But they were noisy and wore quickly. The gears with synchro were helical-cut.

My sorely-missed '63 Healey 3000 (63k on it when I sold it in 1970) had no synchro in 1st, but a '66 I had later, did. Now I'm really dating myself.

[voodoopenguin]

Over here in the UK it was called double declutching and it was a technique you just learnt along with all the other skills. For spirited driving you also learnt 'heel and toeing'.

These days we have it easier.

[GeneL]

All that I can say is at this point in my life syncro or no syncro, it doesn't matter anymore. Give me an automatic and I'm happy

[Grateful11]

VW bumpers had way more curve than that and the overrides aren't right for 50's-early 60's VW, I had a '66 VW.
Someone has definitely taken care of it even if it is a kit.