burning question about RHD

[kpb]

Ok, have wondered this for years and never had the chance to inspect a RHD vehicle to answer for myself.

1. Is the shift pattern on a manual tranny the same as LHD?
2. Are the pedals arranged the same, ie, accelerator on far right?

Thanx in advance for quenching my burning thirst for important knowledge.

Happy Holidays.

But you don't have to go too far back in history to find cars with different shift patterns, whether RHD or LHD -- some Italian cars had 1st and 2nd to the right of 3rd and 4th up into the early '60s and early Porsche 911 5-speeds, up into the early '70s had 1st to the left and back, with 2nd through 5th in the H-pattern. BMWs into the '70s had the turn signal lever on the right side of the steering wheel, rather than the left. In the '50s some Alfas had the accelerator between the clutch (left foot) and the brake (right foot) so that you could take turns wearing out your leg muscles bearing down against the throttle springs of all those Webers. And don't forget that the GM Hydra-Matic cars had a radically different shift pattern on their automatic transmissions right up through the '60s, with Low next to Reverse, etc.

Long before that, the Model T had its wonderful combination of clutch, reverse, and low gear pedals to control its planetary gearset, but the throttle control was a lever on the steering column.

I suspect that the now standard position of the clutch pedal started out in British territories when the pedal was attached directly to the end of the throw-out bearing cross shaft in RHD cars.

[kpb]

thank you wizeone. BTW, visited beautiful Williamsburg this past Fall. Charming place ya got there.

[psfred]

All the controls have been in "strange" positions on various cars. My old Toyota Crown had the ignition switch on the left side of the dash, up near the door. (pre ignition lock days). Many old "serial gear" cars had the shift lever outside the body on the right side -- no synchros, and you had to go through all the gears either way as you were literally moving a drive gear past a set of driven gears. Probably the reason, other than being English, that RHD was popular.

Peter

[alabbasi]

The indicator stark is normally on the right hand side of the wheel on most RHD drive cars, as it is on LHD drive. The exception is normally on Japanese cars because they are designed as RHD cars (Japan is RHD). Other cars such as Mercedes Benz will have the stalk on the left. Other differences that I have found in owning a RHD vintage Mercedes is the following:

The hood release cable is on the passanger side (in the case of my BMW 318i it was in the glove box).
The arm rest is attached on the passenger seat.
The handbrake is not foot operated, but rather the twist and pull type.
The wipers are pointing towards the right and not towards the left.

Pedal configuration and Shif is always the same thank goodness. It was hard enough to get used to the Roads in the US with just the normal differences

[Aaron]

My 1970 Jaguar XJ6 is a RHD car and the gear pattern is the same as on a US-spec manual shift car, as is the configuration of the pedals, clutch on left, etc....And yes, the indicator stalk is on the right side of the column on the Jag as Al mentioned.

Aaron,

I'm a big fan of the Series I XJ6. I even recall from memory excerpts of a February 1972 Road & Track road test of this model (as delivered price: $7,612). I also recall that the US model, burdened with low compression and that ancient Borg-Warner automatic (Model 12?), wasn't exactly a rocket (0-60 in about 10 seconds, I think top speed was 112). I'm curious to know what the specs are for a euro Series I. I assume that you have a 4.2 model, not the 2.8 that was sold in certain areas of Europe.

Pics?