[john hall]

Pretty much agree with what the others have said. I'll go one further and say that some of the smaller and light duty machines were of good quality--there just aren't that many survivors of those. The 382 was a heck of a little lawn mower. Even the 582 Special was pretty nice. I liked the 1315 and 20 as well but wasn't around them enough as the years went on to know how well they held up. I think all of those units were built way better than the comparable Murray and Craftsman models of that time--but they were not of the same standard as the "big boy" Cadets.

I'll add if you are just collecting for show, the small ones may be fun. But if you need to get work done and buy parts then I'd sink my money into the full size models.

FWIW, 982 is a beast, and is way overpriced because its the biggest lawn mower IH ever made and collectors want it. No knocking it, I just ran mine last week.