This thread reminds me of a funny incident an old friend of mine relates. He owned a 62 Pontiac that had a 3 speed manual transmission in it. A 3 speed Hurst Mystery Shifter replaced the factory column shifter. Problem was the Mystery shifter would lockup between 1st and 2nd ocassionally. One time when this happened, my buddy Ken, pulled off to the side of the road, got out the trusty tire iron, crawled under the car and proceeded to work on the shift levers when a car pulls over ahead of his and stops. Out from the other car comes this guy who promptly runs back to Ken's car and opens the hood.
My buddy Ken yells at him and asks him what the he!! he's up to and the guy says, " Hey, I only want the battery, you can have the rest of the car." At which point Ken is wriggling out from under the car armed with a tire iron. By the time he extracted himself from under the car car the "battery thief" was long gone (without the battery). LOL
