Early version of cruise control

T

Topgeye

Junior Member
The 61 Galaxie I bought has a factory installed throttle control cable that's mounted under the dash. It hooks up to the carb. Can't understand the logic of this at all. Pretty unsafe to say the least. Somebody tell me what they were thinking.
 
From about '49 through '54 the police cars with the the optional Police Interceptor engines had a unique carb with a lever used for a hand throttle to increase the speed to charge the battery for all of the electrical accessories. Not sure if they still did that in '61, but don't think so.
Does it look like a factory installation, or home made ?

Sal
 
Manually operated hand throttle controls became less common after the automatic choke systems started to show up in the late 40s & early 50s since they had fast idle function built into the choke system linkage. They were more common back in the time frame where there were manual choke controls so that they could be used in unison. While they could be used to hold the throttle open at higher speeds, I don't think that that's what they were intended for since they have a tendency to creep back down against throttle spring pressure unless it is continuously held open by the driver or it has a locking feature.

I would be sceptical that a car manufactured that late would have a factory installed hand throttle unless it was for a handicapped person and that would have to be easily accessible for the driver's reach. Most of them were put directly in the dash if installed at all but that practice predates the early 60s

A lot of folks had troubles with the automatic choke or they wanted a manual type aftermarket carburetor so they would install their own manual controls under the dash.
 
We drove from NY to Fla with a stick cut to length ,wedged between the seat and the gas pedal. Once we were on the highway I moved the stick until I hit the speed limit and cruised along for hours! This was in '72. We did a lot of dumb things back then!
 
They used to have them on trucks, possibly for use with PTO. One use I heard about when these came under discussion, ranchers would set the throttle down low and get it chugging across the pasture, and then get out of the cab and climb into the bed to throw bales of hay out for livestock. Most definitely not OSHA approved!
 
The stick on the gas pedal was called West Texas Cruise Control. It worked well on flat ground where there's mile and miles of nothing but miles and miles, but of course it couldn't adjust for hills, curves, etc. You had to be ready to kick the stick at all times.
 
I also had a '61 Ford Fairlane with a 292 and 2 speed auto that had that same factory installed throttle control under the dash. The car had an automatic choke so the throttle control could have been used as a form or cruise control. No more dangerous than using a manual choke to control engine rpm and/or speed. Goes back to the days before cell phones when drivers were not so easily distracted and actually concentrated on driving.
 
I wondered about that too when I noticed that the Ford F100 trucks (at least up thru the mid '50's) had that feature. But these also had manual choke and the Ford EBU carb and Holley 2100 had a fast-idle cam, so why would you need a separate throttle cable?
 
Trucks with a PTO use a hand throttle control so that the operator can worry about other things while the PTO is in operation.
 
My 73 Mercury police interceptor had hand throttle in dash, pull out till desired rpm then turn to lock it in position.
 
I remember some police units having a throttle. It was there to set the idle faster when parked at an incident for hours with the reds on. With the old generators, a faster idle was needed to keep the battery charging. Those lights, along with radio equipment used a lot of juice.
 
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