Haha. That is seriously one great idea!
Overview of the 1st Automatic Transmission
In 1921, the automatic transmission was invented by Alfred Horner, a Canadian steam engineer. He designed the transmission to use compressed air instead of hydraulic fluid, but it lacked the necessary power and never was commercially sold. Later in the 1930’s, General Motors developed the first hydraulic fluid automatic transmission, which was introduced in 1940 as the original “Hydra-Matic.”