The GM 4T80 transmission is one of the GM (General Motors) entries the open record knows by name and by date — in 1993, and by little else. That is not nothing: a name in the catalogue is where a car's story starts to be recoverable.
How it came about
The 4T80E is a series of front wheel drive fully automatic transmissions from General Motors. Designed for transverse engine configurations, the series includes 4 gear bearing overdrive 2 electronic shift solenoids, and electronic force motor to control line pressure. The 4Txx family is an evolution of the original Turbo-Hydramatic 125 transverse automatic introduced in the 1980 model year "X" body.
The 4T80-E transmission is electronically controlled and features an automatic overdrive transaxle with an electronically controlled torque converter clutch. The 4T80 originally used a viscous clutch, but this was changed in 2005 to ECCC. The 4T80 is built at Willow Run Transmission in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Turbo-Hydramatic 125; its successor was the 6T70. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the Audi A4, the Toyota RAV4 — show what else the money bought that year. Its GM (General Motors) stablemates include the 1955 Chevrolet and the 1957 Chevrolet.