The ability to reverse is something that a driver might take for granted, right until their car decides that having a reverse gear is too much work. Today, let’s talk about backing up. Specifically, I want to know what vehicle has the coolest or weirdest reversing setup on this planet.
I’ve been thinking about the subject of backing up ever since I wrote about airplane tugs. Cars make backing up basically trivial, something that you never really think about. I suppose some cars have some semi weird ways to reverse. A European-spec Smart Fortwo desperately tries to mimic a real manual transmission, and so you sort of have to engage reverse by slapping the stick over and down as if you were driving a manual. That’s sort of weird. Also sort of weird is engaging reverse in a vehicle with a column-shift manual transmission, but that’s largely the same thing you’re used to in a different form factor.
Here’s that Smart shifter:
I bet the weirdest ways to get into reverse in the car world would be to drive an early car. For example, the FordModelT.net enthusiast group gives this explanation for reversing a Ford Model T:
To reverse, hold the left gear pedal half way down in neutral with the left foot, gently press the reverse pedal to go backwards with the right foot. Relax the pressure on the reverse pedal and press the brake with the right foot when you want to stop. Alternatively, apply pressure to the left pedal to brake, bringing the car to a stop. This can also be accomplished by the use of the hand lever to place the left pedal in neutral, so that when the reverse pedal is released, the brake pedal can be applied. We only have two feet to operate 3 pedals.
Otherwise, let’s look outside of the automotive kingdom! The first non-car example that comes to mind is the Harley-Davidson Freewheeler.
This trike has a standard motorcycle engine and transmission, which means it cannot reverse on its own. However, heavy trikes are absolute units and would suck to push out on human power, so these things have little electric motors that engage to back the Freewheeler out. I have a friend with one of these and he told me you have to reverse sparingly because the motor will drain the battery surprisingly quickly.
Reversing ships gets pretty cool.
A ship with variable pitch propellers may reverse just through changing propeller pitch. Ships with azimuth pods can spin the pods around to achieve reversing action. Some of the world’s most famous steam-powered ships achieved reverse by redirecting steam from forward engines to reversing engines.
I have a feeling I’ve only touched on the wonderful world of going backward. What are the coolest or weirdest ways that vehicles get in reverse?
Top graphic image: Ford
My Bug has an EMPI shifter with a ring trigger reverse lockout instead of the standard pushing the shifter down. Maybe not cool in the nerdy sense but definitely cool in terms of vintage hot rod style. Feels almost martial to engage reverse like that.
Look at the sheer variety of engineering solutions for reversing steam locomotives. A number of them are linked to a mechanism (like on the Stephenson valve gear) that allows you to adjust the travel of the piston for turning the crank. How cool is that?!
Early mechanical engineering is wild.
Trying to remember the process on my old Honda 300ex 4wheeler:
1. Be in neutral with clutch released
2. Press little reverse button next to clutch with right hand and hold
3. Pull clutch lever and hold
4. Reach with right hand down to left side of transmission to pull up reverse lever
5. Shift to “1st” with left foot
6. Release clutch to go in reverse
If no one showed you just be pushing.
Reverse on a Jet Ski if equipped is a clamshell that slips over the jet, basically diverting water back under the ski.
Honda Goldwings use the starter and a reverse gear to help assist moving those behemoths out of a parking spot.
Early Hydramatics required the driver would shift from Neutral to “Low,” wait for the transmission to engage, and then complete the shift into Reverse. Shifting too quickly could damage the internal components.
The MD-80 Jet airliner used the same clamshell method to allow them to throw jet engine thrust forwards to that they could back out of a gate.
Biased perhaps since I spent the morning changing a difficult drive belt on mine, but zero turn mowers having handles that smoothly transition from forward to reverse without a stop, and having two sides that can each do so independently, is cool.
Not to mention the reverse to forward can elicit some fun wheelies in the driveway!
Apropos of which, taking this opportunity to post my own comment from a while back that got the (treasured) COTD 🙂
https://www.theautopian.com/dude-wheres-my-car-and-the-valet-cotd/
I always liked the Acura Hybrids that have no reverse gear and just use the hybrid motors with the 7DCT. Not that I particularly like DCT, just that eliminating a gear if you already have the electric motor makes sense.
Ford and Toyota do the same.
SAAB Sonnett V-4 with 4-on-the-tree:
Select 1st gear by pulling the column shifter towards you and up (same place reverse is with 3-on-the tree)
Now pull the shifter towards the passenger side, out from the column.
Now slide the shifter down towards your knee to engage reverse. That is, if you’ve done all the steps properly and there’s no slop in the linkage. If you fail, you wind up in 2nd gear.
Yamaha FS1E Moped. Bump start it backwards and the 2-stroke motor will run the other way, giving you four speeds in reverse. I never got more than 10 feet though.
Disney World used to have a stunt driving show with a fleet of custom Hayabusa-engined Opel Corsas. Since they had to drive just as fast in reverse as going forwards, those cars had 4 reverse gears!
Lights, Motors, Action!
They also had a sweet stunt Herbie who “crashed” into part of the set and came out split in half (longitudinally, no less)!
GMC 3751 “Silversides” bus. Four on the tree, nonsyncro, reverse engagement by a switch operated solenoid on the transmission and then putting the shifer in 2nd gear. And bonus for Mercedes – they can be converted to a motorhome, viz., Busgreasemonkey on YouTube.
Gated five-speed dogleg, of course! [wink]
1969 John Deere Model 1020. Depress the clutch. Place the left shift lever in “R”. Place the right shift lever in any gear, depending on how fast you want to run over something, or your brother. Release the clutch. The left shift lever has four positions, 1 “low range”, 2 “high range”, R “reverse” and P “Park”. The right shift lever is a four speed H pattern, giving you 8 effective forward speeds and four effective reverse speeds, plus I suppose 4 options for park, which is no speed. You also have individual brakes for the rear wheels, no brakes on the front axle. And there’s a selector lever on the left side of the transmission housing to engage the differential lock, and a smaller lever to engage the PTO.
I mean obviously you need individual rear brakes. How else would you do your tractor pull?
EZ-Go Golf Cart with 2-cycle engine.
The 2-cycle engines in these carts were designed to run in either forward or reverse depending on which way the starter motor was set to crank it.
The forward/reverse lever is basically an electrical switch that reverses polarity and determines which direction the starter motor will spin when cranking the engine.
This works for these golf carts because of the way they operate, just pressing the gas pedal initiates the starter and then when the brake pedal is pressed the engine shuts off.
So not a gear selector but a pretty neat way to go in reverse.
Coolest way to get into reverse? My Yugo.
All the way to the right, and down.
Okay let’s try that again.
To the right and down.
Still nothing.
Over and down.
Dammit.
Over and let’s try up just a touch and then down, that seems to work sometimes.
Let’s try this again.
Over and down, grrrr.
Okay once more.
Ah there it is.
It’s not “back, and to the left?” Ha ha
JERRY: What happened to your head when you got hit?
KRAMER: Well. uh, well my head went back and to the left
JERRY: Again
KRAMER: Back and to the left
JERRY: Back and to the left Back and to the left
ELAINE: So, what are you saying?
JERRY: I am saying that the spit could not have come from behind … that there had to have been
a second spitter behind the bushes on the gravelly road. If the spitter was behind you as you claimed
that would have caused your head to pitch forward.
ELAINE: So the spit could have only come from the front and to the right.
JERRY: But that is not what they would have you believe.
NEWMAN: I’m leavin’. Jerry’s a nut. [Exits]
Honda Goldwing: Pull a lever down near the seat and push the starter button. It then uses the starter motor to reverse.
Ford Escape Hybrid and Toyota Prius: These use one planetary gear set and two electric motors to achieve EV drive, CVT hybrid drive, regenerative braking, charging, engine start/stop, and reverse! It’s such a remarkably elegant engineering solution.
Falcon 9 and Starship super heavy booster: Turn around and relight the engines!
The Gilmore museum near Battle Creek Michigan offers “learn to drive a Model-T” classes. I got do take that and can say it was one of the best times I’ve had in a car in a long time.
https://gilmorecarmuseum.org/learn/model-t-driving-experience
(And, yes, they show you how to back up and make you demonstrate that ability.)
Battle Creek just became a non-negotiable stop when my family visits MI.
Next time I visit the dispos in Coldwater, I’ll have to make the short trek to Battle Creek. Maybe just make it a weekend trip to see the sights in KZoo, GR and Muskegon while I’m at it.
Went to the Gilmore Museum last year.
It made me Happy.
Probably not the coolest, but the 2nd gen Tacoma 6 speed manual and Fj Cruiser manuals give a nice beep to let you know that you are, in fact, in reverse instead of first gear. Gives me the warm fuzzies every time I drive one (idk why).
I wish my 6 speed Mustang had this, especially the first few days I had it. I’m always double checking to make sure I’m in reverse or first. Yes, you have to push down to get it past the gate into reverse but you don’t have to push down very hard and if you slam it over from neutral it is pretty easy to drop below the gate. Or I’m just heavy handed.
My old Porsche’s the same way – and unlike say a VW with the push-down requirement, it’s just a detent that feels way to easy to cross. My biggest problem has usually been getting her into R from a standstill, rather than 1st, so that’s good I guess.
I’d say the Mars landers that use retro rockets to slow and eventually hover the rover gantry over the Mars surface are a pretty cool reversing mechanism.
Honorable mention to jet engine reversers and pushback tugs, which Mercedes also just wrote about: Here’s How Weird Tug Trucks Tow Giant Planes That Weigh More Than 400,000 Pounds – The Autopian
>>> Copart Nissan NV cab enters the chat.
You don’t even need brakes! Nature is happy to assist!
“To reverse the vehicle, tilt the bed of the rollback truck and remove the tie-downs. Please insure that there are no people behind the vehicle, or between the vehicle and trees.”
My brother in law asked my mom to teach him how to drive in reverse back 10-20 years ago. He was in his 40’s got his license in the 1970s and my sister drove when they needed to go anyplace. He only ever drove to work as a night elementary school janitor and never needed to back out of a parking space.
Probably the WK Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The process is basically “do nothing, then go check your mail, then Jeep reverses into you.” That’s a surefire way to know what gear it was just in.
/never too soon to call out stupid design
//RIP Anton
I thought it wasn’t in park like he thought* it was?
*You should never assume or “think it is”, always check and make sure.
I dunno the coolest, but I always appreciated that my Genesis Coupe didn’t have a reverse lock-out, and instead just had a stronger detent and an audible “beeeep” when you engaged reverse.
This meant I could just any shift knob I pleased, because there was no reverse lockout collar.
But descendants of Donkey Kong took to the forums back in the day to complain of regularly engaging reverse instead of 1st with their ham-fisted approach.
Old Messerschmitt Kabinrollers would reverse by restarting the engine backwards. A lot of other old microcars did this too, usually with those combo generator/starters
Both my 1972 Velorex 435 and my 1980 KV Mini 1 work on this principle, in each case with the direction of rotation determined by a spring-loaded self-centering lever mounted on the floor at the front center of the bench seat.
In the KV the starter/generator is engaged as soon as the lever is pressed to the end of its travel in either direction whereas in the Velorex the lever must be held at one of its limits while pressing and releasing the accelerator pedal. There’s no starter button under the pedal; instead the throttle cable actuates a contact at the starter/generator, which then spins the motor until the lever is released.
My Fuldamobil does that trick. Of course it has the same engine and dynastart as the Schmitt. Two-strokes are great.
I used to know the owner of a KR200. The best – or at least the most terrifying part of this – was that all four gears in the sequential gearbox became reverse gears, so you could go just as fast backwards as forwards!
It’s the same for my Velorex although I haven’t worked up the nerve to try anything beyond first gear in the reverse direction. Forward is sufficiently distressing as it is.
Old Lanz Bulldog 2 stroke diesel tractor do this as well. They can even run at “zero” rpm.
https://youtu.be/pYeEotP_c3M?si=QcI9aasODfWCxxeF
Speaking on behalf of Jason, the Beetle (Pictured here). I remember when I learned to drive stick on a beetle, first gear didnt want to engage and I tried to start on second gear but I put it on reverse by mistake, you should see my face when the car moved backwards and hit a parked car lol