What Am I? Shifted
Welcome back to our Monday morning glimpse into the past, present, and future — which is known around these parts as What Am I? Today, you get to take a look at this picture and figure out the vehicle it is attached to.
What am I? Comments below.
hm – looks old – and 5-speed – reminds me of that scene in the Towering Inferno, where Charlton Heston has this Bronco or Blazer with 8 forward gears and 3 reverse, and nobody else can figure out how to drive it – they crash it into chunks of the burning building – or maybe it was Earthquake in SENSURROUND, i forget exactly, it was the 70s
Hmmmm, looks British to me.
early 5 speed porsche 911/912
Looks almost truck like. Straight, fairly long shifter,very basic round shift boot on the floor, with palm sized, flattened out shift knob. Bare floor suggesting either a truck, mid-restoration or race car? Don't see pedals on the left, ergo, is it an old rhd something? Looks like it belongs in something utilitarian, like a Bus. (This is why I'm not a detective!)
here's an interesting knob – vintage Ruf
[image src=" forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads10/shift_knob1181166058.jpg" width="400px"/]
some old Mercedes knobs have the gear numbers in circles and the R up-and-over there – this is from a 59 300SL, made from unicorn horn
[image src=" scottgrundfor.com/classic-mercedes-benz-sales-showroom/classic-cars-for-sale/1959-mercedes-benz-300sl-roadster/images/burnsidesroadster5.jpg"/]
Yeah, those unicorn shifters are really the ones to get. Once we shifted to Narwhal, the quality just went down the toilet.
not to mention narwhalgahyde… on a hot summer day, yeeeouch
At least we found something to replace the demand for whale after the world moved on from whale oil.
got to be fake
[image src=" s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/3e/34/83/3e34835f655f03f09b83f5c7b707a96b.jpg"/]
The picture above shows Steve McQueens Mustang shift pattern from the movie Bullit. It is the little known Ford 20 speed and Lieutenant Frank Bullit double-clutched most of them….
The shift pattern looks like a dogleg Porsche 901 box, with the convenient fourth to first downshift shortcut or the even more useful third to second upshift feature.
The knob itself looks more like one from a GMC CCKW 6×6 truck with the 10 speed transmission. I actually learned to drive one of those when I was about 10 after mastering the Ferguson but it's been at least 40 years since we sent ours to be scrapped.
On second thought military vehicles put the shift pattern on the dashboard so I'm guessing something more agricultural like maybe Ferrari ?
here's an old-school 13-speed truck shifter – lever first, then shift
[image src=" 4statetrucks.com/images/09-1513023_l.jpg" width="400px"/]
This looks to me like the shift knob from a Mercedes L1116 series medium duty truck, like this one from a 1983 1116:
[image src=" s22.postimg.org/ga70vqwrl/9855025_1476530535_711.jpg" width="400px"/]
I thought it was from a Mercedes bus, but I'm still confused enough to think that its a RHD vehicle.
Found it. Good one!
1971 Halfinger 700AP Troop Carrier
FTB — in case you didn't know…YOU DONE GOOD AND GOT IT!!!!
That is all.
-Vince