Patent US 6,014,604

The object of this invention is to reduce shift shocks by controlling the driving torque during gear shift changing so that the driving torque is represented by a smooth, ideal waveform. The driving torque calculating means estimates the output shaft torque of the automatic transmission from the engine torque characteristic or torque converter characteristic and, based on the estimated driving torque, generate a targeted torque pattern during gear shift changing. The engine torque control value calculating means calculates the control value for controlling the engine output torque, i.e., an ignition timing correction value .DELTA..theta.ig, so as to eliminate the deviation between the targeted torque and the driving torque estimated by the driving torque calculating means. This ignition timing correction approximates the driving torque to the smooth targeted torque. This configuration realizes the object mentioned above.