1942 advertisement for Studebaker announcing the 3 new cars - The 
President 8, The Commander, and The Champion with the new perfected 
Turbo-matic drive. 

It was basically a fluid coupling, a 3-spd trans with OD, a clutch operated 
by vacuum servo which was triggered by contacts in the shift lever, and 
various other controls. Shift lever positions were Rev., Traffic range, 
Neut., Cruising range, Low. You might recognize some of those components 
as being very similar to what Volkswagen's Automatic Stick-Shift used in 
the late '60's, early '70's. Basically, Turbodrive was still born, caused 
by the outbreak of WWII.
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turbo-matic was a fluid coupling an automatice vacum-operated clutch
and a conventional 3-speed transmission with kick-down overdrive it
eliminated the clutch pedal
Feb 2004

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The number of cars equipped with Turbomatic isn't certain, the article says
possibly only six were built. They were all prototypes though, and none were
ever sold to the public. Clell Ballard wrote that article, and it is a good
one. May '86 TW.
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