I've been rereading "Allis-Chalmers Farm Equipment" lately, just came back across the story of the development of the rotary.  The story says that they designed a 65" wide conventional combine, but it was not practical because it was "too wide" for custom harvestors to haul.  It had second driving controls on it's butt so that it could be driven down the road up to 35 mph in reverse.  Since this didn't work out, they moved on to the rotary. 

Now is it just me, or does this not make much sense?  First, the 8820, 860, 9600and following, Lexion, and even C62 all have about 65" wide cylinders, and they have all been hauled all over the world quite regularly.  But more importantly, the Gleaner rotary has it's rotor mounted cross wise.  The rotor is much longer then any cylinder is wide.  How does this produce a narrower width seperator?   

Yeah, I know, thinking too much again. 

All conventional combines have the wheels outside the cylinder on each side, the 'down front' location wouldn't be any different. No matter if you look at conventional or at rotary every machine on the market is doing to be about 14' wide with singles on, or maybe a little less with duals with outside tires off.

I didn't see anything difficult about hauling the 9600's the summer I worked on harvest....you flop the ramps, drive them on, throw on some chains, raise the ramps and off you go. Same proceedure as hauling a rotary. Yes, it's not exactly loading them on a 2 ton with the sides off, but I'd like to see someone do that with an N7.

One other thought....wasn't the prototype the same width when it was driving down the road backwards as it would be if it were on a trailer?