I was told by a former colleague of mine that attended the technician new model course for the SVX that he was told that it was originally going to have pioneered the the transmission with the center diff in the us but that some states required that there be a way to put it into 2WD for emissions testing, and this was not possible with that trans. This makes sense because I know the Toyota "All-Trac" transmissions of the same time period had a linkage that you could move on the transmission to force it into 2wd. It required removing a bolt and was not mentioned outside of the service materials. The Toyota service manuals said specifically that it was to be "used for emissions and performance testing only when absolutely necessary" and that driving with the transmission in this mode would cause damage. This seems to support the idea that some state or some government somewhere required a 2wd mode. This is obviously no longer the case. Thanks to whatever body kept that tranny from us
