What recall?  I don't know of any recall on the 9  1960 Chrysler 300F Special Gran Turismo cars built with Pont-a-Mousson 4speeds.  What failure?  Those few cars were a very special project and none of them had transmission problems while doing what they were built to do which was set records on Daytona's sand.  Four of the 9 cars still exist and one clone convertible has been built from another Facel Vega P-a-M.  I only know of one of the 9 having been converted to torqueflite by its owner who was too impatient to wait for transmission parts.  Sure, in owner's hands on the street such things as a chipped tooth on the cluster show up as in my car about 35 years and 120,000 miles later.  I don't call that a failure behind a 400HP engine.

The three speed manual was then used in the 1961 300G Specials and was GROSSLY inadequate and that truly was a failure with only a couple assembled.  However, a number of standard 300Gs with 375 HP engines and lower torque were built with that side shfter 3speed sticking out the side of the console.  Same thing for 300Hs and the new series of 300 sport models with the 383.

Of course not all the Pont-a-Mousson equipped 300Fs lasted through their first several years with some of them crashed at high speed but this is the very first I've ever heard of a recall and replacement 3speed stick being installed.  Someone may have mis-spoken or not been clear that the 3speed torqueflite got into a car or two over the years.  I do know that at 3-4 years old the mule test car, then in private hands, was converted from P-a-M 4speed to a torqueflite 3speed and eventually died in the Arizona desert after flying off the road in excess of 130 mph. 

Also, let me reveal that the nine 300F 400HP Special GTs were first built with the P-a-M but when that small quantity of transmissions that had been ordered ran out, another 4-5 Specials were constructed with 400HP engines and torqueflites.  This from my meeting last September with engineer Burt Bouwkamp, who headed the Gran Turismo project. 

Facel Vega technicians (the only other car to ever employ the Series II P-a-M as used in the 300F) have told me to a man that this transmission was virtually bulletproof with one exception; that being the cluster gear.  During production of the Series II, there was a design change from a two-piece interlocking cluster gear to a one-piece gear and that is said to have solved the problem. 

Can't help you with the knob color question on the 3speed sticks. 

How do I clarify this to answer Neil's question.....

All construction of these Specials was as part of the Gran Turismo project.  This was accomplished by taking completed production line standard 375HP torqueflite cars over to a building referred to as "Header House" where unique vehicles were hand built.   There the engine was rebuilt by the factory's engineers with the 284o cam, larger valve heads, huge cast iron headers, and water heated short ram intakes and 3084S carburetors with manual chokes and racing clearances.

First, the test mule car was built.  Hardtop with 400HP engine and Pont-a-Mousson 4speed transmission.  Kind of cobbled and hacked together to make certain it could be done and would all fit and work.  Biggest problem was with adapting clutch linkage from some model of Dodge truck and secondly a new top shifter cover had to be cast to bring the P-a-M shifter back 4 inches from the Facel Vega location for driver ease of use in the larger interior of the 300F.

Then seven more hardtops and lastly a convertible.  These 8 had the 400HP engine and all P-a-M equipped.   This used up the supply of P-a-M transmissions.  One assumes a couple of spares were kept back for problems at the Daytona appearance.  Rumor has always been that 12 P-a-M tranmissions were received by Chrysler from the French manufacturer.

Then 4-5 more hardtops which had the 400HP engine but were torqueflite equipped.

Next question.

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First, Guys I'm a little bit sorry that we are running concurrent discussions of the 3speed manual cars and the Pont-a-Moussson 4speed equipped 300Fs.  Should have been seperate threads but oh well, here we are.  Didn't mean to hijack if anyone feels that happened.

Neil, there are innumerable P-a-M trans out there because of their installation in Facel Vega cars.  However, again, it is only the second series (Series II) trans that was behind the Hemi Facels and that would hold up to the 300F installation.  There was an earlier (Series I) P-a-M that was lighter duty, and a third (Series III) that was used in the smaller 4 cylinder Facelia cars.

I'm going to presume that you are referencing the Don Petty black 300F convertible with short rams, headers, and a Pont-a-Mousson that appeared out of nowhere in history (ahem) about a year ago.  Don exclaims that this is a factory original car.  Let me state even more emphatically THAT CAR IS BOGUS.  It is a clone from parts he accumulated over the decades.  He had two P-a-M Facel 4speeds and sold me one twenty years ago when my cluster chipped.  As a salvage yard operator I'm sure he had the opportunity to purchase other transmissions.  I purchased a second spare myself from another Facel.   The 300 club knew for decades that he had a black standard 375HP torqueflite unrestored 300F convertible with the current VIN.  When he claims it is authentic he has no documentatiion and is flat lying through his teeth.  He offers the car for sale for $1,000,000.   Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) !!!

I only have one question about how he constructed the car and that is how he moved the shift lever back the required 4 inches from the Facel location.   Now, that asked, the mule car was probably disassembled in the Phoenix area by 1970.  A set of headers Don showed me twenty years ago likely were from that car.  It is possible Don also traced the original trans and got the top cover for his build.  Recall in my earlier post, that mule car was changed to a torqueflite in its early years.   One would have to get under Don's car to verify it HAS a P-a-M and /or to verify it has a 300F top cover.

Did a single 300F adapted P-a-M leave the factory?  Sure!  If they built 9 cars and nobody required or purchased a spare trans, then there were three left to sell and I'm certain they did so.  Where'd they go?  NO RECORD.

I have no idea what you mean by "metaphysically different".  Plain and simple, Don's BOGUS 300F Special convertible is a clone.  ANY car that doesn't have factory or historical documentation must be assumed to be a clone.   Now, remember I wrote earlier that the F Spls came off the assembly line as standards, not Specials.  Their IBM build record shows them as standards.  BUT, their shipping dates are weeks later than what is normal (1-3 days) after assembly because they spent those weeks at Header House.   Each of the existing Specials has a historical track record documenting its ownership and location.  There is a brief notebook of engineer's pages talking about the Gran Turismo project.  In it is ONE serial number written down: the car I own making mine the best documented of the four existing in that sense.

Okay, yeah, clones are physically, spiritually, metaphysically, historically, and in Don's car's case even OBVIOUSLY different.  You would think a guy trying to steal a million dollars from an uninformed buyer would have done a better job of at least duplicating visible differences from his own 300F Special GT hardtop but he MISSED several!

NO, a 300 is not a 300 if a Windsor (or NYer, or Saratoga, or any DeSoto) body is used to create the 300.   IT IS A CLONE, a fake, a knock-off, an imitation and worth a fraction of the real deal.   It is why in the Classic Car Club of America when someone takes a Deusenberg or Packard or Auburn SEDAN body and chassis and has a guy like Marcel DeLay PERFECTLY duplicate a boattail speedster replacement body and all the correct detail equipment is in place, the car is put in a NON ORIGINAL class and is judged (and valued) accordingly. 

Pic attached of the BOGUS Petty clone.  Even from 15 feet away Don didn't have the good sense to put original wide whitewalls on the car AND all the Specials came with steel disc road wheels, not showy 15" chrome wires.  Would YOU want to drive this car at 165 mph risking a inner tube or wheel failure?

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I'll actually add something to the 3speed thread! 

Regards Chrysler 300s, the 3speed stick was available in '61 and '62 and '63.  Very few '61s got it.  '62 a few 300Hs got it and a pretty good numer of 300 Sport models.  In '63 as I recall only one 300J was a 3 speed stick and I have no idea but presume several '63 300 Sports got it.

Now, weren't there two versions of the 4speed that arrived in '64?   A light duty that came behind Slant 6 cars with quite a few Darts and Valiants so equipped, and then the heavy duty version for all the V8 cars?  Did the light duty also come behind the 273 and 318 equipped cars?

Somewhere I have a factory pic of the 300J console /stick area but darned if I can find it.