Hi -
A tilt column is has an additional lever that allows you to adjust the steering wheel up and down for comfort and ease of exiting the vehicle. It's an option that could be had in both column and floor shift configurations. Similarly a column or floor shift automatic was also an option - column shift was typically with a bench seat, while a floor shift with buckets, although I believe you could get a column shift with buckets.

jim

 

wow you made it sound so simple. i guess i really was overthinking it, ...come to think of it my moms car steering column comes up down and out. any idea why they're so expensive or sought after?

 

Tilt column was an option, just like positraction, it was available throughout the line, I ordered it optional on a 65 Chevelle El Camino and a 70 SS LS6, the 70 had a column shifted TH400 with a bench seat, consoles were an option with bucket seats, my 67 SS396 was ordered with buckets, a 4 spd. and NO CONSOLE. Today, many of the items we get in a "package" used to be ordered individually only if you wanted them. Way cheaper to sell you a package from a manufacturing point of view than letting you cherry pick what you do or do not want (fewer mistakes in ordering and on the assembly line also).

 

thanks for this explanation. i wish i was born back then. i would have loved to custom order my own chevelle. one more question i have is did the base chevelle 10 bolt have positraction or was that just for the 12 bolts.

 

I believe posi was available in both 10 and 12 bolt configuration, as an option .

 

Yes it was available in 10 bolts as well.

 

So went the way of the 4 speed, positraction 409 Biscayne with no radio or heater and rubber floor mats in the good old days,

 

IIRC on our older cars there would be another lever next to the turn signal that you would pull in on and you could raise or lower the steering wheel position, my 64 Tbird had the column shifter you could push it above Park and swing the entire steering wheel to the right for ease of existing the car, pls no flaming I know it was a Ferd lol

 

I had a 70 454 Vett. It had the adjustable steering wheel that tilted and went in and out. I floored this car one time, and I had the steering wheel in all the way towards the dash, and when I took off the lock did not hold the wheel, and came up to my chest, I thought the steering wheel came off,let up on the gas and put on the brakes, scared the crap out of me, till I realized what happened.

 

My 1970 El Camino spec.sheet from the GM Heritage site lists the tilt wheel option for $43.05 (at the time) and was not available with any column shift cars standard trans. cars, only with A/T and floor shift std. trans. cars.

 

This is the tilt/cruise column on our 70, with the wheel all the way down and all the way up. Back then, cruse was NOT available with a manual tranny (it took the Japanese to show the American auto industry that it could be done). I went through several rows of Chevys in a salvage yard pulling off factory cruise parts until I had more than enough parts to install it on the 70. Works like brand new.
The column is actually from another car and the steering wheel is from a later Camaro Z28.

 

A retired mechanic who worked at Yenco Chevrolet in the sixties was looking at my 69 el Camino SS396. He asked if the Hurst Autostick was dealer installed.. I said I bought it on HAMB and installed it but I didn't know it was a dealer option. He said Yenko used to install them in the Chevelle, el Camino, Nova and Camaro cars. With either bench or bucket seats and that he had installed a lot of them.... He was amazed that I could get a shifter porch for my car on e-Bay.. He also said that was one of the best automatic shifters ever made.