904 doesn’t start in 1st?

Some of the early Ford C4 variants had two drive positions. One that was regular drive and the other that started out in 2nd. Daddy had a 65 Falcon with that feature. The marketing name for that transmission was "Cruise O Matic" and in the owner's manual it talked about how starting in second was good for snowy and icy conditions.

Having told you all that nonsense, I guess it's reasonably possibly Ford was not the only maker that tried that.