I had a Chevy Corvair and it only had RNDL (no P), vertically on the dash with a lever that moved up and down.
To park you put it in N and pulled the parking brake lever conveniently located by your left ankle.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but they used to teach kids in driver’s ed that if the brakes failed on a car, that they should jam the shift lever as far upward as possible to try to engage Park. I was in a car where this happened. We came down a slight incline into a parking area, the teen at the wheel stepped on the brakes and they went to the floor. She reacted just as she was taught. Luckily, we were at a low enough speed that nobody went flying (no seat belts in that old Mercury), the car stopped and oddly enough, the transmission still functioned.
On reflection, it could have been something her dad taught her, as driver’s ed wasn’t common back then.
That doesn’t work on most (all?) modern cars. There’s usually a safety interlock that prevents the car from going into either reverse or park if the car is moving forward above some threshold speed.
When Mythbusters tried it on their show, the car they picked allowed the shift lever to go into reverse (I don’t remember if they tried park) but the gears didn’t engage and the car basically just coasted.
Dad’s 1960 Dodge Dart had a push button auto. I don’t remember the order.
That is just not true.
N does nothing. N for nothing, you could say.
It really does NOTHING AT ALL.
You can rapidly move it from R through N to D , when stopped , and the engine at idle.
Everyone Does.
The extra time from having N there is NOTHING - it really lives up to its name.
Its really only a sensibility issue - Have P at one end, so the driver knows it in P - a driver awareness thing - , and to have D-2-1 at the other end , so that the driver can try using 2, 1, (eg when stalling going up a steep hill… ) without choosing other gears (like N or R.)
I’ve read your post a couple of times and can’t parse it.
Neutral is not “nothing at all.” It’s a position in which the transmission has no gear engaged (in most designs, it means no actuator is powered, clamping no band on any planetary gear set)… but the Park pawl is also not engaged.
Put another way, Park and Neutral are the same setting with respect to gear selection - none - but Park engages a locking toggle or pawl that prevents the rear output shaft from turning.
Neutral is not just a do-nothing space on the shift quadrant.
That is definitely not anything they taught in driver’s ed. Putting the car in park at speed will have essentially the same effect as putting it in neutral, which is pretty much the opposite of what you want to do if your brakes fail.
Like engineer_comp_geek said, newer electronically-controlled transmissions simply won’t engage park if you’re moving too fast. But even on old cars, the parking pawl is a spring-loaded ratchet gizmo that won’t engage the notches on the output shaft if it’s moving too fast. So putting the car in “park” would just cause the pawl to skip and chatter over the notches, not slowing the car in any meaningful way. It’s not until the car is only moving at really slow speed (probably 10-5 MPH) that the pawl can engage and slam the car to a stop, possibly breaking the pawl in the process. So somewhat counter-intuitively, slamming the car into park at 5 MPH is actually a lot more likely to damage the car than doing it at 50 MPH (assuming you realize what you did and put it back in drive before it slows down.)
My 65 Corvair is like that. Only there is no L, just RND.
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Park is a separate button. I believe B is for engine braking, but I don’t know if it’s the (gear) equivalent of Low, as I do not own the car. I believe the Prius can use either regenerative braking or the engine to slow the car on long grades, depending on whether or not the battery needs charging.
Rollover, Nosedive and… Dance?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist. I know the second gen 'Vairs were quite nice cars.)
B is an engine brake. It’s not like a Low gear, because it just brakes. You wouldn’t press the gas while you’re in B, because you’d just be fighting the brake. About the only time you use B is if you’re going down a long hill and you want to slow the car without riding the foot brake. Since I live in mid-Missouri, about 150 miles from the nearest hill of any size, I almost never use B.
When I drive the Vair, I always say I’m “taking it out for a spin,” which sets my brother up for the obvious joke about spinning the Corvair.
Thanks. Carry on.
I get the same yuks if I say I’m taking the Cobra out for a… well, you know. Also an old pilot’s joke. Too old.
That’s not quite right. When you let off the accelerator on a Prius, it switches the traction motor into a generator which charges the battery and emulates the engine braking you would see on a normal car. Putting the car into “B” just makes the computer up the amount of regenerative braking it uses when you let off the gas, emulating having a normal car in a lower gear. If you use the accelerator in “B” mode the car accelerates normally-- it isn’t “fighting” anything because the electric motor can’t simultaneously propel the car and slow it down.
It’s actually exactly the same as riding the foot brake because under light braking the car only uses regenerative braking. It only engages the regular “pads n’ rotors” brakes after you really step on it.
Lame trivia: When I worked at a place that authored and printed the manuals for the Big 3, we called that the “prindle”.
A Prius and a Corvair?
Add a Volkswagen Thing, and you’ll have the complete “no, just no” collection. 
Comment from the clueless non driver: I’ve seen, and understand, the troubles of both driver and transmission when the driver switches to a manual.
But I always thought that the pattern on a stick was an H. So manual drivers who switch cars can also be grinding gears and looking flustered–yes?
Ignorance fought.
I worked for a while at a garage that was a Daf dealer. These little cars, with their Variomatic fully automatic transmission were quite popular for a while. The gear lever had three positions - forward for forward, neutral, and back for, you guessed it.
The problem was that the drive belts were prone to failure. Later on, Ford offered the system in the Fiesta, but with a metal mesh drive belt. It was not a great success.
http://dafownersclub.weebly.com/brief-history-of-daf-cars.html
Standardisation on the controls of cars is a good thing. Back in the early days, even the pedals varied - imagine getting in a hire car and finding the pedals reversed. Even in a RHD car, they are the same.
A common sight over here back in the 70s was people making a turn, on a sunny day, with their wipers wagging. Japanese cars had the indicator and wiper control stalks the opposite way around to European cars.
I remember going to collect a new car from a garage, and sitting in it for ages, finally resorting to the manual, trying to get it in reverse. There was a small collar under the knob on the gear lever that had to be raised.
Nissan finally developed a high-power (good for more than 50 or so HP) CVT and released it on the Murano. I have no idea what kind of success it’s been, technically or with owners. But for decades the CVT was limited to scooter-level horsepower and was cranky even then.
Those were common on the bigger Ford manuals like the toploader. My Cobra has the T-bar reverse lockout, which… works but does not function. That is, it’s the correct spring-loaded piece and you can lift it all you want, but the 5-speed uses a push-down lockout for reverse instead. Good for yuks with a new driver.