In high school, my friend had an F100 he fixed up. Didn't like the column shift so cut a hole in the floor and installed a floor shifter. To this day there's two things he regrets: adding that floor shifter and selling that truck.
My father told me that when column shift became available for cars, it was like a miracle. For decades the Big Three in Detroit had been tryin to move the shifter from the floor to the steering column, and at last they finally managed to do it. And guess what? People didn't like it. Go figure.
My dad worked in a garage back in the day. Said one day, this guy was driving down a steep hill and the car started going out of control so the dude shifted into reverse. Gears and metal shot up through the floor.
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