Tractor Fatigue

[TomG]

Yes. My tractor gear shift is on the left side. It's fairly common for me to get off the tractor, get in the 1/2 ton, and put it in reverse with the turn signal lever--especially true after loader work. Almost makes me wish for HST.

[ERNIEB]

Scruffy, well yea I did, and worse since I wasn't all that familar with it I could'nt get the darn things to turn off. I remember those Sprites. A cousin had an MG, I'm not sure what it was, but it wasn't a sprite. I had never been in a sports car before, and the first time riding with him I felt like I was sitting on the floorboard. Of course these days a lot of cars are built that way.
Ernie

[Bird]

ErnieB, my first brand new car was a 1962 Austin Healey Sprite, and at that time the MG Midget was the same car with a chrome grill instead of stamped metal, a little extra exterior chrome (if I remember right) and more colors on the instrument panel.

Bird

[ERNIEB]

After I wrote that, I started thinking that maybe the Sprite was an Austin Healey. Glad you cleared that up. My cousins MG was a 59, I think, and seems like a little bigger than the Midget. In those days(about 62), he was really into the road rally thing. He had those little tags stuck all over the dashboard.
Ernie

[Von]

Ernie,
In 59 it would have been a MGA. I had two of them, one a coupe and the other a roadster. Still have a 59 Austin healey 100-6.

Von

[glennmac]

Boy, isn't it amazing how we can warp a topic into another dimension ... and at warp speed, too. Well, I used to live in Austin and knew a gal named Healy .... Heck, guys, at least tell us something foolish, dumb and profoundly embarrassing you did in your sports cars.

[WVBill]

My B6100D shift pattern has reverse to the upper left. My Garden Tractor/mower has reverse to the lower right.
You can see where going from one to the other after a couple of hours would take me...

Back in high school my Dad's car, which I drove, had a stick shift on the column. My boss told me to take his car to make a delivery once. It was an automatic on the column. I started off from a traffic light and up-shifted to second. Second on a stick = REVERSE on an Automatic. Fortunately there was no obvious damage done but I can't help but wonder how much longer my boss's tranny lasted...

[Bird]

I believe the '62 model was the first year the Sprite wasn't "bug-eyed" and I've have loved to have had the big Austin Healey (3000?) that year, but since it was over $4,000 and the Sprite was $2,200, the big one was out of my price range. I used to have a lot of fun pulling my dad's big old 16' boat to the lake with the Sprite; always seem to draw a crowd to see whether that little car was going to pull it out of the water at the loading ramp (never had a problem). And the folks that passed me on the highway were sure rubbernecking because you couldn't see the car at all from behind the boat.

Bird

[scruffy]

Bird, I believe you are right. The little 59 sprite had the old cheshire cat grin with the 'bug-eyes'. More fun than a barrel of monkies! Didn't go real fast (if I remember right 73mph was tops on mine) but it sure held the road nice! Great little car up north in the mountains! I sure wouldn't have tried pulling a boat with the 59, but down in your neck of the 'woods'(???) land is only a few inches higher than the water! When you can FIND water that is.
P.S. - Maybe I heard wrong, but it seems as if 'walking' catfish were actually natives of Texas, but developed the walking ability and migrated out overland to find water! Must've been one of the 'dry spells'.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by scruffy on 10/4/00 06:20 AM.</FONT></P>

[Bird]

I don't remember all the details, but I believe in '62 they boosted the horsepower up to around 50 or so, and mine would just touch the 100 mark on the speedometer on flat level ground. A mechanic at the dealership, who was into racing, drove it a couple of times and wanted me to get into racing with it; claimed it was the fastest one he'd ever driven, but I needed it to get back and forth to work, so no way was I going to put it on the track. Normally got 34-38 mpg, but pulling the boat would pull me down to 26 mpg.

Bird