Getting there from here...

[trfour]

Are there any other gearheads out there?

The Dynaflow in our 1949 Buick was not the most efficient, but the incredible torque it took just to get that 7 1/2 ton rig to move, and if anyone used it to tow with the fuel prices of today, they'd probably need to own an oil company! The 1949 Buick was brutal on fuel, 3-4 miles per gallon. Just remember that gas was about .17-.20 cents a gallon back then.
However, the Dynaflow was virtually indestructible and towed our house from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, and all of the mountains, [Rockies], and in between. It used 1/2 pint of transmission fluid over the whole trip!
Here's some history on it , Credit Wikipedia.
Dynaflow was the trademark name for a type of automatic transmission developed and built by General Motors' Buick Motor Division from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s. The Dynaflow, which was introduced for the 1948 model year only as an option on Roadmaster models, received some severe early testing in the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, which were built in Buick's Flint, Michigan assembly plant during World War II. It was also used in the 1951 Le Sabre concept car.[1]
The Dynaflow initially used a five-element torque converter, with two turbines and two stators, as well as a planetary gearset that provided two forward speeds plus reverse. In normal driving, Dynaflow started in high gear (direct drive), relying on the converter's torque multiplication to accelerate the vehicle. Low gear, obtained via the planetary gearset, could be manually engaged and held up to approximately 40 mph (64 km/h), improving acceleration. However, the transmission was incapable of automatic shifting, requiring the driver to move the shift lever from low to drive to cause an upshift. Buicks equipped with the Dynaflow transmissions were unique among American automobiles of the time in that the driver or his/her passengers would not detect the tell-tale interruption in acceleration that resulted when other automatic transmissions of the time shifted through their gears. Acceleration through a Dynaflow was one smooth (if inefficient) experience.