The Jatco 4 speed overdrive transmission in my 89 Laser has proven trouble free in the 60,000km I have driven, but the shift quality has never been stellar.
Snowmobiles use CVT as well, I believe, but I imagine that is a specialised application where CVT comes into it's own and very different operating conditions to a car.
Nissan are game using it on some of their V6s now! Will we ever have a V8 running a CVT? I'd like to see that.
Leyland even experimented with a prototype on a full size bus back in the early 80s and it showed promising results in a 6% saving in fuel, but the transmission, unsurprisingly kept getting too hot.
