Making a four-on-the-tree, has anyone tried this?

Back in the late 60's, I bought a 55 Cameo pickup from an estate sale. It had a non running 283 in it, we towed it home & found that it had an old Saginaw 4 speed in it. What mystified us was that it had a lever sticking out of the floor & it was connected to the reverse lever on the transmission. The column linkage had been modified to work as the 4 forward gears. We put a running 327 in it & I drove it for about 5 years before selling it.