Car designers just can't resist messing with automatic transmissions:
Back when cars only had three manual speeds and reverse, the possibility of mixing up the gears was minimal. At least you had a one in four chance of getting it right. But after the popularization of the automatic transmission in the 1950s, the controls for gear selection became a question of both design and ergonomics.
In 1971, the Department of Transportation mandated automatics use the PRNDL—say"prindle"—layout. The impetus of this law, like so many automotive regulations, stemmed from the 1965 book, in which Ralph Nader called out General Motors, Studebaker, and Rambler for using confusing transmission designs that put Reverse after Drive. Nader cited crashes resulting from drivers missing the intended gear and accelerating in the wrong direction. The PNDLR pattern was dangerous, he asserted.
Despite the seemingly obvious driver benefit of keeping shift patterns consistent across cars and brands, designers just can't stop playing with their alphabet soup. These days, the mechanical connections that once limited how wacky a company could get with its shifter are gone, and shift-by-wire gear selectors give automakers additional interior-design flexibility since there's no physical link between the shifter and the transmission.
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