Last month I went on a cruise with my girlfriend’s family when, during a bus tour through Mazatlán I spotted it: The Moby Dick of shifters. An absolutely gargantuan, 2-3 foot mammoth of a stickshift with a boot that looked like a golf bag. Rather than pay any attention to the gorgeous city I was riding through, I found myself mesmerized by the bus driver carefully maneuvering that shifter via the longest shift-throws I’ve ever seen. Here, have a watch.
I was worried that being stranded for the majority of a week on a cruise ship would mean I’d have to live a car-free life, but the reality turned out to be quite different. For one, there was a Volkswagen Thing on the ship itself!:
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Then, during the land excursions, I spotted gems like this custom Nissan Versa convertible:
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And then I learned about those VW Beetle-based “Pulmonias” with their custom fiberglass bodies and taillights nabbed from pretty much any car you can think of:
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But the real gold came when my girlfriend, her family, and I jumped on a bus in Mazatlán; it wasn’t what I saw from the bus, it was the bus itself. Behold this absolutely gargantuan shifter, which I’m going to call the longest shifter in the world even though you and I both know that some absurd contraption probably exists with a 5-foot shifter:
To give you an idea of the scale, check out this side photo showing the driver. The shift-boot looks like a damn golf bag!
Watching the driver seemingly dislocate his shoulder to toss that shifter what looked like a quarter mile towards the front of the bus to change gears, only to then walk three miles, grab the shifter, and pull it all the WAAAAY back for the next shift is truly mesmerizing. Check it out for yourself:
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I wish I could tell you more about the bus we were in, or the engine (which clearly sounded like a diesel), or even the transmission model, but I really have no clue what this machine is:
The tour guide let me sit up front, where I filmed the driver (with his permission), and just generally lost my shit, not at all paying attention to the lovely surroundings:
What is Mazatlán like? Is it clean? What do the people there do for a living? How’s the weather?
To all of these questions I have no answers. But what I can tell you is that the shifter in our tour bus was something special, and the operator is basically an olympian, with his ability to row that humongous oar in just the right way to get every dang shift on the money. He’s a hero, really.
That’s the shifter she tells you not to worry about.
This is good Autopian.
When I was a kid we had a shockwave shaker, which was a tree shaker built on an international harvester truck chassis, and for various reasons he would sit back about where the rear axle was in the shift lover was just attached to the transmission the way would be if it were still a pick up.
The length didn’t impress me so much is the fact that half the gears were down by your ankle and the other half were about forehead high.
We also had a corn harvester, which was basically built on top of a conventional wheel tractor except that you were sitting about 8 feet up in the air, and I think that had a really long shift lever. That was the only piece of farm equipment. I never operated because it was deemed too dangerous. Thinking back you were essentially sitting on a stool driving across the bumpy field with a bunch of knives swirling right where you would fall off your chair if you hit a bump, so yeah.
I dunno, that seems fairly typical of large trucks with manual transmissions? Especially busses. It was fairly typical for old transit and school busses to be equipped with manual transmission. The low floors in those vehicles required tall shifters. The old Chevy Step Vans also had quite long shifters.
Also, some constructive feedback: I thought I was having a stroke reading this article. You said “Here, have a watch.”, and then immediately following that statement, there is a completely unrelated video that auto-plays for some reason (Those mid-article unrelated videos are highly distracting by the way). Then, you had two more videos actually related to the article, but weren’t the video you were referring to when you said “have a watch” at the top.
Old C30 and up GM trucks with bench seats were a long S shaped wonder as I recall.
“…Let’s cut the roof off of a Nissan versa… And then put a roof over it!” – Someone
David, All of the Voyager (same as the Navigator OTS you were on), Freedom and Oasis class ships have a car on the Promenade area. See this article about the origin of them.
My wife and I have been on the Navigator several times and that Thing is very popular for pictures. Do they still take the ropes away after disembarking so kids can climb in and sit there?
I think the Liberty had a 57 Vette Convertible when we sailed on that.
I don’t think they let us sit in it, though I’ll ask if I’m ever back!
Ive seen similar setups in other busses before too. The ones I saw were full size city busses from the 1970s, built by Scandia or Volvo. These had the motor up front and the shifter was floor mounted and about 2-3ft long. I was amazed how the driver never missed a gear
The Standard Atlas has entered the conversation…
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/this-1962-standard-atlas-pop-top-campervan-is-a-unicorn-screaming-for-your-attention-237401.html
On the boat….
DAVID: (with excitement) Just when I though for sure this whole week would be carless…!
ELISE: (with resignation) Just when I thought for sure this whole week would be carless…
What is Mazatlán like? Is it clean? What do the people there do for a living? How’s the weather?
To me its one of the few places in Mexico were the city wasnt planned to be a tourist trap like Cancun and you have a good mix of city life combined with good attractions, amazing food, unique transportation (Who doesnt love a Pulmonia blasting music?), the city is cheap, a lot of historical places, miles and miles of walkable area by the beach. It holds a special place on my heart since my mom spend all her summers there and she tells me all the stories when she was kid and going back and look her eyes glow of happiness, its all I need.
As someone who spent 18 years pulling wrenches on big rigs, I can confidently tell you that is NOT the longest shifter even on your local highway stretch.
Long-ass shifters are the hallmark of Owner/Operators adding bling to their rig:
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Boy, that guy was trying to compensate something…
A lot of them are.