agreed on the production rates - I had no idea they were pumping out that many. What I do like about those ads is that they give us a rough idea about which month they had reached each serial number:

Feb 58 - #150,000
Nov 58 - #250,000
March 59 - #300,000

what is most interesting is that if they had reached #150,000 by feb, they had already gone well past known production numbers for the automatic, as we know to be likely no later than #130,000. Food for thought.

Here's a nice image of Merv with what I think may be one of the first true Specials:


[Linked Image]

What is great about this image is it shows the first Special badge we had been discussing earlier, and also a bunch of other details about how the mower was set up. Plastic throttle, toe guard with the loop fittings, and the slit in the front axle housing - also notice the rear nut above the slit on that housing? It's larger than the front one. Why would they have two different size nuts? This explains it:

[Linked Image]

So the idea was, you were supposed to adjust the height of the mower as usual then tighten the wheel adjusting lock nut with the spanner to lock the height in position. I'm guessing the slit and large nut was introduced to remedy the issue of the the mower losing height through vibration. Perhaps the groove is designed to compress?