The beautiful Alfa Romeo 156 was offered with three very different transmission options: a traditional manual, a five-speed robotized manual known as Selespeed, and one of the quirkiest automatics ever fitted to a car, the Q-System. It was available only with the 2.5L V6.
At first, the Q-System behaves like a normal four-speed automatic. But move the selector to the left and it transforms, letting the driver shift gears through a classic manual-style H-pattern.
The system was developed by Aisin, which is majority-owned by Toyota. That connection likely explains why a similar idea resurfaced years later in the Toyota GR HV Concept.
Like the Alfa, the Toyota concept featured an H-pattern-style manual mode, though with six ratios instead of four. It was activated through a hidden button beneath a flap on the gear knob.
It was weird, but genuinely intriguing: a small reminder that the late analog era still had room for unusual ideas before dual-clutch gearboxes and conventional paddle-shift automatics took over.
