These days we take the automatic transmission for granted, but it took a concerted marketing campaign to sell the innovation to the American public. Here’s GM’s pitch to the car buyers of 1948 starring the Oldsmobile with Hydra-Matic Drive.  

General Motors was well ahead of the industry in 1940 with the introduction of Hydra-Matic Drive, the first practical fully automatic transmission. (The feature was adopted by Oldsmobile in 1940, Cadillac in 1941, and Pontiac in 1948.) With a few notable differences, Hydra-Matic was much like the automatics of 2017, with a two-element fluid coupling and three hydraulically controlled planetary gearsets that provided four forward speeds and reverse. And it drove pretty much like a modern automatic, too: Just place the lever in D (or Dr or Hi) for Drive and go.

Yet Hydra-Matic was not the huge sales advantage in the marketplace we might imagine today. Early on, the option was relatively costly at buy-in, less than totally reliable, and expensive to repair. Many drivers were more than content to keep clutching and shifting, or at least had become used to it. It took some years for GM to persuade the car-buying public of the need for and desirability of the automatic transmission. In this promotional spot, shown to movie-goers in theaters across the country in 1947-48, the virtues of Hydra-Matic are showcased in the all-new-for-1948 Futuramic Oldsmobile. “Driving Magic!” GM proclaims. Video below.