[David Jones]

Three on a tree.
Dad taught me how to drive in his small 6, three on a tree 1960 F100. His next truck was a 1973 Ford 1/2 ton with a 302 and a three on a tree. That truck didn't even have a radio. Both my older brother and I used that truck through high school and the right rear tire spent a lot of time smoking. By the time my little brother got behind the wheel of that poor thing, it took some prayer and a dose of luck to get the shifter from 1st to 2nd. To congratulate the 1973 model for surviving 3 boys, Dad parked it down on my little brothers property, where it finally succumbed to a tough life. My brother has a yearly weekend party down at his place and 150-200 people camp-out in the pasture and eat bbq, drink a few beers and shoot guns. Part of the festivities a couple of years ago was putting a large quantity of tannerite under the truck and sending it off...... https://www.facebook.com/bmaddox5119...user_video_tab

[gtospieg]

BVZ...I didn't even know Aunt Bee had a Tempest...must've missed that episode. All I ever saw on that show were Fords.

[bird72]

I find it an engineering marvel that someone designed "on the tree" shifters. Can't quite figure out why. My first driving experience was some late 50's Plymouth Behemoth with 3 on the column. Stab and hope. I probably could do a little better now.

[tom s]

I bought a new 68 catalina with a 400 and 3 on the tree.Drove it across country and back the day after I bought it.Sold it and the guy put a 4 speed in it.Tom

[richardk]

My dad taught me to drive in '67, when I turned 14 and could get my learners permit, in our '66 Buick LeSabre with an auto tranny. Even though I already had my license, the next year when I was a sophomore I took Drivers Ed and learned to drive stick in a Biscayne with a three on the tree.

[OG68]

Our school had a pair of 61 Plymouths with a slant six and three on the tree for drivers ed. And no A/C in those Northern California 100* + summers. As luck would have it a pair of 67 Belvederes showed up a few weeks later to replace them with A/C, 318 and a Torqueflite.

[pont406]

This one was at Norwalk a few years back, notice the shift lever is thicker than an automatic lever

[Jeff Hamlin]

Something noted here is the Lever on the '66 GTO appears to be a slightly different design/shape.
My old '66 Tempest 3spd column shift lever was more of a rounded end Teardrop shape.
Looking at this GTO it has a thinner blunt/flat end design, something I wasn't aware of.

[geeteeohguy]

In almost 50 years of looking at these cars, I have never seen a real GTO of any kind with 3 on the tree manual shift. I've seen plenty of auto on the column cars, and 3 on the floor cars, but zero 3 on the tree cars. I have seen, owned, and driven plenty of 3 on the tree cars and trucks over the years, just no GTO's. Would love to see a real one.

[68lemans462]

Originally Posted by David Jones

Three on a tree.
Dad taught me how to drive in his small 6, three on a tree 1960 F100. His next truck was a 1973 Ford 1/2 ton with a 302 and a three on a tree. That truck didn't even have a radio. Both my older brother and I used that truck through high school and the right rear tire spent a lot of time smoking. By the time my little brother got behind the wheel of that poor thing, it took some prayer and a dose of luck to get the shifter from 1st to 2nd. To congratulate the 1973 model for surviving 3 boys, Dad parked it down on my little brothers property, where it finally succumbed to a tough life. My brother has a yearly weekend party down at his place and 150-200 people camp-out in the pasture and eat bbq, drink a few beers and shoot guns. Part of the festivities a couple of years ago was putting a large quantity of tannerite under the truck and sending it off...... https://www.facebook.com/bmaddox5119...user_video_tab

Large quantity of Tannerite and an old truck. Now that sounds like a FUN afternoon. We always have a large quantity of Tannerite on hand at my wife's familys ranch. It never gets old!

[Diego]

This thread is somewhat curious.

3-on-the-tree was the standard transmission for most American cars till around 1970, when automatics started to be made standard for several full-size vehicles. I think the tranny continued to be standard for some through the late 1970s if not the early 1980s. I can try to find production info if interested.

But the OP asked about a 3-on-the-tree GTO, which is a completely different breed than your run-of-the-mill standard car with standard tranny, which prob numbered 7 figures in the 1960s. There's few cars like this GTO.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Diego

This thread is somewhat curious.

3-on-the-tree was the standard transmission for most American cars till around 1970, .... I think the tranny continued to be standard for some through the late 1970s if not the early 1980s. I can try to find production info if interested.

...

What do you mean by "standard?" Three on the tree is referring to a manual transmission with a column mounted shifter, NOT a floor shifter. That was quite rare. I've only ever seen less than a handful of them and NEVER seen one in a '70s car.

First car I ever drove was a '64 Nova wagon with a 6-cylinder and 3-on-the-tree.

Yes, manual transmissions were "standard equipment" with automatics being optional in most cars into the '70s, but the vast majority of manual transmissions utilized floor shifters.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by Will

What do you mean by "standard?" Three on the tree is referring to a manual transmission with a column mounted shifter, NOT a floor shifter. That was quite rare. I've only ever seen less than a handful of them and NEVER seen one in a '70s car..

I don't know how old you are, but a 3OTT tree was not rare when I was young. It was the standard transmission in most cars back in the 40's, 50's and 60's as they weren't putting floor shifts in cars with bench seats and an automatic was almost always an option. Yes, in the 70's the 3OTT tree became rare. I have owned or driven at least a dozen different '60's vintage cars ('60 Catalina, '65 Rambler, '69 Bel Air, '67 Biscayne and a multitude of U.S. Army fleet vehicles while stationed over in Germany)

Even in my 1949 Cadillac Series 75 factory limousine - the automatic was an OPTION - a 3OTT was the standard transimission setup for a limo...

[Diego]

Originally Posted by Will

Yes, manual transmissions were "standard equipment" with automatics being optional in most cars into the '70s, but the vast majority of manual transmissions utilized floor shifters.

That's so very not true.

Having a 3-speed on the floor (excepting pony cars) is a big exception, not the rule.

[unruhjonny]

/\ /\ I'm with Diego.

I looked at Will's profile to see if he was my age or younger, which might have served for him to make this assertion, but he's ten years my senior...
So where he comes off thinking that 3OTT wasn't the norm for cars from (as the Champ said) 1940's through 1960's I haven't got a clue.

Even literature from the early 1970's shows that more often than not, when a 3 speed manual transmissions was the base transmission (which was often the case), a 3OTT was standard fare unless set up for a floor shifter.

The 1966 GTO having a 3OTT as base equipment seems quite odd, because for the two years prior, the floor shifter was one of the performance attributes of the GTO's base equipment;
As pointed out earlier in this thread, the models below the GTO had a 3OTT...

I don't know when 3OTT dropped from the Firebird's base equipment, but it was there for 1970 - granted this was only on the base model with the inline six - but the Firebird was marketed as a sporty car regaurdless of trim level, and even it came with a 3OTT.

[Will]

Well, I'm just going by my experiences and I have very little with pre-'60s cars as they've never been of much interest to me. I was arguing that they were not very common in mid'60s and newer cars as that's simply been my experience.

I seriously have only ever seen a few of them in early - mid-'60s cars. You hardly ever see them at shows or anywhere. Other than that one my brother owned when I was 12 I don't know anyone who's owned one so if they were so plentiful, how come so few have survived? I just find it really hard to believe that they were in a majority of manual transmission equipped cars, at least from '65 and later.

[unruhjonny]

Has it occurred to you that the cars at shows are normally the exception from the norm?

Those cars at shows are more often than not seen as special by someone, and saved from the ravages of daily use, then subsiquently scrapped.

How often have you seen a bone stock Chevette at a car show - NO, not a hot rodded one... but a boring old regular one, like what were seen everywhere around the time you bought your dad's Formula!?

The "common" cars are driven till deemed unreliable, then tossed out.

How often do you see Lemans or Chevelle wagons, let alone four door cars with rubber floor mats and vinyl bench seats.

When I bought my first Grand Am, the front wheel drive ones built between 1985 & 1991 were EVERYWHERE, now they are no where to be seen... and this wasn't even twenty years ago.
Now the few 85-91 Grand Am's that pop up from time to time are either Quad4HO cars, or 2.0L Turbo cars - and normally the top of the line "SE" models, not the base or "LE" models.
How about the other GM N-bodies, like the Oldsmobile Calais or Buick Skylark(?);
Odds are the only ones you will ever see from here on in, will be the Calais Quad442... and even those were not built in high numbers.

[Will]

Point taken about shows and what has survived to this day. But, between myself, friends, and family there are a lot of cars that have passed through our hands over the years and as mentioned, I've only ever seen less than a handful of the darned things. I used to do a lot of wrecking yard shopping, too. Guess myself and the folks I know have been buying (and looking at buying) the wrong kinds of cars... LOL.

[importsmasher]

I've driven a number of 3 on the tree cars. My parents had a 78 Chevy van I drove in high school from time to time. I even drove an Australian 71 Falcon with 3 ott. It was cool shifting left handed. My brother has a 68 Skylark convertible with a 3 on the tree. That's gotta be rare. How often do you see a stick shift Buick, much less a 3 ott? And you'd think if someone was paying for a convertible, they'd spring for an automatic or at least a floor shift... We've never been able to determine how many were made; it can't be many.

Importsmasher

[Stuart]

Another point is those cars with a column mounted shifter tended to be base model cars, often with four doors and six cylinder engines. They weren't the kind of car that was normally preserved - they were driven until they were worn out and then sent to the junkyard. For the most part they weren't muscle cars that people held on to, so you'd see them at car shows today.

Having said that, from the late 1950s on automatic transmissions were the overwhelming choice of most owners even though it was an option. For instance, in 1958 only about 3 1/2% of the Pontiacs built that year had manual transmissions.