BTW, Del, do the 4 speeds you are talking about have 3 regular forward gears with the 4th gear being overdrive? That was what my Dart Lite had and I am just not familiar with other 4 speed OD Mopar trannies, so am curious.
"Sort of." What you FUNCTIONALLY call 4th from the driver's seat is OD
But the reason the front shift lever is upside down is what (Ford) and Mopar did was to re--gear the box so that the "formerly known as 3rd gear" is now an OD gear
So in "4 speed" parlance, when you shift the OD box, you are actually shifting 1 - 2 - 4- 3 in order to get 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
When these came out, they were good and bad. Many people did not stop to think, with pickups and vans, or even HP cars, that the "geared" OD is somewhat weaker than the old "4th" straight through, and you used to see a fair amount of these in pickups or vans that would not stay in gear, LOL