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Originally posted by Tomo
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"The early Swamp Foxes weighed in at around 850 pounds. The weight of these machines increased through the years as other improvements were made. In the mid-1970's the standard engine became the extremely reliable 16-horsepower four-cycle Tecumseh engine. These engines were far ahead of their time, in that they had overhead stellite valves, solid state ignition and semi-fixed jet carburetion, all of which could be found on engine produced by other manufacturer (even foreign) only a decade later. The major drawback of this engine was that it did produce a good amount of vibration.
At the same time, several other types of transmissions were offered. A hydrostatic transmission was used very briefly, but the great amount of heat it produced allowed for it to disappear as quickly as it had come. Another drive, which used several automotive-type brake drums connected to a two-speed transmission were also used. Problems with these units led the makers to revert back to the original T-20 transmission after several years. The Borg Warner also held its share of problems, but most of those were overcome with engineering changes in the machine itself.
In this time period, the original yellow body was beefed up, adding marine plywood in the floor and on the front of the lower body shell surrounded by fiberglass. The yellow color was eliminated, and an offering of red, white, blue, green and brown was made available. The upper body shell was modified by raising the dashboard area up around 3 inches and changing the headlights. Taillights were an option to the standard red reflectors in back. The word "super" was added to the machines name, making it known as the Super Swamp Fox."
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