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
It’s nothing special, but I loved the reverse in our ’65 VW split window bus:
Push the long wobbly stick towards the centre of The Earth and then try to find second, (left/back)
Also enjoy it in the Volvo Penta diesel engined sailboat: Just pull the stick the other way: Soo simple and logical!
My 1967 Porsche 912 had reverse as top left – where first is in most cars. No need to press the shift knob or anything…
I once watched a restaurant valet reverse it (very slowly) into a wall…
Not ideal.
Well, after the “mechanic” “fixed” my ’71 Fiat 128, shifting into reverse resulted in getting the transmission locked into second. Does that count?
Dogleg Porsches; try to shift into second—sometimes it’s reverse.
New Holland swathers, pull both of the handles back, and you are in reverse. One back and one forward and you ahead spinning in place. It’s the steering and the transmission!
Caterpillar tractors. The same as the New Holland. A tank driver will have to pitch in on tank behavior.
I think tanks vary quite a lot, but the one I tried (an FV432, which is technically an AFV not a tank) had a gear selector on your LH side, and you had to pull a knob out to be able to shift into reverse.
Apart from the gears it had a mostly normal accelerator pedal, although it was big enough for me to fit two feet on. The steering/brakes was two leavers, pull back on the left one to engage the left brake, etc.
It still boggles my mind that it would have been entirely legal for me to drive it down the road, with just a couple of L plates and an instructor. I also learnt that with a normal UK gun license you can own a T-72 with a fully functional main gun. You’re just only allowed to shoot it in a few places, all of which belong to the British Army.
Some two stroke Messerschmitt cars simply had you turn off the car and turn a different key that started the engine in reverse.
Don’t forget the DAF! DAF didn’t “shift” like a conventional transmission. Instead, it mechanically rotated the entire rear axle to reverse the direction of thrust. This innovative — and unconventional — design eliminated the need for reverse gears and gave DAFs their famous (and infamous) ability to race at full speed in reverse, leading to the wild reverse racing events popular in the Netherlands during the 1970s and 1980s.
Eh?
The little DAF cars had a CVT belt that would ‘shift’ even when the reverse gear was selected.
IIRC, there was definitely a reverse gear and there was definitely no rotating of the entire rear axle.
Having driven a Model T, I would be happy to consider it the coolest way to get into reverse.
Forklifts and some loader tractors have s shuttle shift reverser. Push the stalk forward to go forward, pull back to reverse, middle is neutral. The tractors are fun because some of them let you use any rear in reverse. Some lock out the high gears for obvious reason.
Easy. Lamborghini Countach, put gearlever in reverse, open scissor door and lean out
Bumper cars — just keep turning the wheel until you go backwards!
I may be pandering to Mercedes here (love ya!) but any diesel-electric locomotive. Those chunky horizontal levers just feel great to flip for reverse. Best feeling ever, being in control of one of those massive beasts.
I’m sure it didn’t come that way from the factory, so it may not really count, but: 1964 Ford Galaxie 500.
It had an automatic transmission with a column shifter. Despite having had quite a bit of restoration work, shifting was never quite right; by the time my parents acquired it in the early ’90s, the little stick had a tendency to become disengaged from the shifting mechanism, meaning that you would sometimes see the stick rotate slooooooowly clockwise while you were driving, with no effect on the actual gear position. ‘Drive’ wasn’t exactly where the ‘D’ was printed, and reverse wasn’t exactly where the ‘R’ was printed, but park and neutral were both easy to locate. I would usually try a few times to locate reverse before finally putting it in neutral and pushing.
Pretty well known (the Top Gear video on YouTube has close to 30M views!) that in lieu of a reverse gear the Peel P50 has a grab handle on the back so you can get out, lift the rear of the P50 by said grab handle, and turn the P50 around. Despite the utter inelegance (especially if it’s raining) of such a reversing arrangement it gets my vote for the coolest way to get in reverse.
I came to reference a different Top Gear, where James May has the Merc with the dogleg first gear that consistently resulted in his car starting in reverse whether it was him or the German vehicle inspector driving it.
Not sure if it quite counts, but I’d like to propose the Bond Microcar; while the early versions didn’t have a reverse as such, they had dogem-style steering with the engine mounted to the front wheel, so could turn so sharply that reverse was pretty much redundant. Later on they did also add the classic microcar option of starting the engine backwards, which is also a fun way to get reverse.
I always liked the Chrysler products push-button shifters from back in the ’50s and early ’60s.
Never owned one, but rode in an old Imperial once as a teen and thought it was cool.
Owner of 1962 Valiant here – can confirm, pushbutton shifting is pretty cool!
In my HMV Freeway (a deluxe model) it’s a three-step process. The first step is to read the manual, keeping in mind that all of the production units are technically the Freeway II (or FREE-WAY II, as sometimes styled):
The second step is to remember that Dave Edmonson never got around to producing, or indeed designing, a reverse mechanism for the Freeway and so none of them actually have one, not even the deluxe models.
The third step is to get out and push.
But it says right in the manual that a child can push it. It is up to you the owner to supply the child. Be aware that the manuals for children are sold separately and are wildly inconsistent with each other. And boy are they expensive! Purchasing such a car with no reverse is a false economy as it would be for more economical to get for example a Bentley Continental GT which has an excellent reverse gear.
Alas, back in the Victorian era, you could just grab a street urchin for things like reversing your carriage, sweeping chimneys, or mining coal.