Who invented the Hill Holder

[ddub]

For my next question...I have always wondered about the origin of the Hill Holder, was it invented by Stude engineers, by a brake company like Bendix? Was it a Stude exclusive, I don't remember other cars with it. I do know that Subaru offered the feature many years later. I suppose ther are so few stick shift cars now that no one cares.

I learned to drive in hilly country on a Stude and thought it was a great feature, took the fear out of hill starts. I also thought the under-the-clutch starter was a good idea when I killed the engine trying to start on a hill.

53 Commander Hardtop
64 Champ 1/2 ton
WA state

[65cruiser]

Wikipedia says:

Hill-Holder is a name for the mechanism invented by Studebaker that holds the brake until the clutch is at the friction point, making it easier to start up hills from a stop in manual transmission automobiles. It is currently available only on the Subaru Forester and on the Fiat Punto.

Similar systems are in use by Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.


________________________
Mark Anderson
1965 Cruiser

http://home.alltel.net/anderm

[Mike Van Veghten]

I've got one (complete) off of my 54 Conestoga if anyone's interested.

e-mail me at - ocr1atearthlink.com -

Change the "at" to "@".
That helps keep the Nigerians out of e-mails.

[garyash]

According to legends in my family, the hill holder was invented by Charles Lumley (1886-1975) who ran a garage in the Seattle area. It is alleged that he also invented the wig-wag turn signal, and sold both to Studebaker. He was married to my great aunt, Mary Ash. I believe the hilll holder was first used in about 1936-37. The family legends also include a reference to a Lumley invention for a vacuum siphon device useful for filling beer bottles at home during Prohibition.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Patent Office data base is not searchable by inventor name for patents of this era, only by patent number. I keep meaning to go to Washington, D.C. to find out if this is really true, but haven't made it yet. There aren't patent numbers on the two hill holders I own. Of course, my M5 truck has one because I BELIEVE!

Does anyone else have any info on this?

Gary Ash
Dartmouth, MA
'48 M5
'65 Wagonaire Commander
'63 Wagonaire Standard

https://www.studegarage.com

[Dwain G.]

Wonderful story Gary, I hope it does prove out!
The only documentation, such as it is, that I can offer is from trade magazines. A picture from the Studebaker booth at the 1937 New York Auto Show (in late 1936) shows an operating demonstration of the Hill Holder.
An August 1938 magazine article begins "An Anti-Roll Back device known as NoRol, is announced by the Wagner Electric Co., St. Louis, Mo., for all 1937-38 hydraulic brake automobiles and light trucks. The device is similar to the Hill-Holder used by Studebaker..........."
None of that proves anything, but it does appear Studebaker may have had some sort of exclusivity for the first year? Notice that Studebaker parts catalogs refer to the unit as NoRol!

Dwain G.

[garyash]

I got stimulated by this thread and searched the patents at www.uspto.gov. [You need the TIFF viewer plug-in to see the old patents.] The Internet is amazing - you used to have to go to Washington, D.C. and search manually for this stuff. Since you can't search old patents by inventor name, you have to search by the classification. It turns out that Class 192 is for "Clutches and Power-Stop Controls" and sub-class 13A is for "clutch-released brake holder". A search under CCL 192/13A yields 174 patents from 1790-2006. The oldest one listed is actually from the early 1920's. I pulled up the images of many of the patents from about 1942 back and read through them.

I award the prize for inventing the hill holder, as we know it, to one Walter R. Freeman, who held at least 15 patents on the hydraulic brake-locking mechanism released by letting up the clutch. His first patent was filed Oct. 15, 1928 and issued April 14, 1931. The first patents were assigned to a company called Midwest Engineering of Tulsa. Later ones were assigned to Wagner Electric Co. who actually produced the hill holders. Freeman must have gone to work there. The castings do have the word "NoRol" on them. I found W. R. Freeman patents on hill holders filed as late as Jan. 1941, but none after that. The last patent is about using the hill holder in a car equipped with a fluid coupling instead of clutch. Maybe it is the thing that became the anti-creep valve! I can't find him or Midwest Engineering in Tulsa in a Google search. If anyone wants the list of patents numbers, email me.

So, if this stuff got invented in the late 1920s and early 1930s, how come it took until 1937 for Studebaker to use it? How come it didn't become popular on other cars? It sure is simple, cheap, and useful.

There are a number of other related devices dating back to the 1920s, but they apparently were not commercial successes. Wagner Electric held the bulk of the patents, assigned to them by their employees who invented the ideas. So, if my great-uncle Charles Lumley invented anything like a hill holder, he never got a patent on it. So much for family legends!

There are new patents being issued all the time for hill-holder devices, but now they are integrated with car electronics.

Gary Ash
Dartmouth, MA
'48 M5
'65 Wagonaire Commander
'63 Wagonaire Standard

https://www.studegarage.com

[Transtar56]

"So, if this stuff got invented in the late 1920s and early 1930s, how come it took until 1937 for Studebaker to use it? How come it didn't become popular on other cars"
Fewer women drivers back then?
I know the hardest thing my step-daughter Crystal had to overcome in getting competent with her motorcycle,was pulling away from a stop on a hill.
She grew up driving automatic only cars,and a stop sign on a hill was real scary for her for the first couple of years.
I wonder why none were ever installed on a motorcycle, or did they?

[raprice]

I've often wondered why other companies didn't pay Studebaker royalties to use that feature. Many people would have been relieved of that tension of trying to start after stopping on an uphill road.
Rog

[Dan White]

I have a picture of a Hudson ad to dealers in the '40s that listed the Bendix No-Rol kit for dealer installation on Hudsons. Some of the Hudson folks have come up with part numbers into the early '50s for the No Rol kit. However, I have yet to talk to any Hudson owners (including me) that have the No-Rol installed. From the picture this is the same device as the Studebaker Hill Holder. Apparently some of the linkage is application specific and you can't just throw one on any vehicle without working out the details. Not sure if any of the other independents offered such a kit or not.

Dan White
64 R1 GT
64 R2 GT

[55s]

I met a man in the 1980s who worked for Subaru, and had said he suggested the Studebaker Hill holder to their engineers. They slightly reinvented it (instead of a ball rolling back to block the brake port, a weighted & hinged flap accomplished the same goal) and Voila, the rest is history.

Paul R

[DilloCrafter]

This thread is rich with information! Gary, for those of us who don't yet know, what is the "wig wag" turn signal, and why is it named that way?

[img=left]http://rocketdillo.com/studebaker/misc/images/Current_Avacar.gif[/img=left] - DilloCrafter


1955 1/2 Ton Pickup
The Red-Headed Amazon

[kurtruk]

quote:Originally posted by Transtar56


I wonder why none were ever installed on a motorcycle, or did they?

Well, let's see: you stop with one or both feet on the ground. One hand holds the front brake, the other the clutch. The hill holder is right between the ears...

BTW, have you ever heard Bill Cosby's routine on this very subject? I think it is from the Seventies. He's trying to drive a VW in the hills of San Francisco. I've got it on an old cassette.[)]

[Lark Parker]

quote:Originally posted by DilloCrafter

This thread is rich with information! Gary, for those of us who don't yet know, what is the "wig wag" turn signal, and why is it named that way?

1955 1/2 Ton Pickup
The Red-Headed Amazon

Here is a Wig Wag. It resembles an old railroader's signal lantern.
It is an additional brake light that swings when the brakes are applied and the action is powered by vacuum. Mine is off to the chromer so I cannot say exactly what was on the tag but it did include the terms "Wig Wag" and "Studebaker".

[rockne10]

I always thought the hill holder was installed in the clutch operated standard and the NoRol was the electrically operated anti-creep on the automatic transmissions. My 51 and 53 are both automatics and the anti-creep works well in both.

[ddub]

Gary,
Thanks for the research, very interesting. I do wonder why it didn't achieve wider popularity. It certainly worked well and was very useful in hilly country.

53 Commander Hardtop
64 Champ 1/2 ton
WA state