MATT - That's been discussed over at RPM's forum, ownership of the "IH" logo, I think FIAT actually owns it now. They actually own what used to be Case/IH, now known as Case/New Holland which includes all the old IH ag business. NAVISTAR International had to come up with their own logo, the square diamond shape with the "Squiggly Road" trademark about 20-24 yrs ago.
Interesting FACT....Fiat also owns Ferrari, and two years ago at the Canadian and US Formula 1 Gran Prix the Ferrari cars displayed the CASE/IH logo proudly on the top front of the nose of the cars.
I agree with You on the "No cut in reverse" situation, but that law has been in effect for MANY years and isn't going away any time soon if ever.
GREG P. - I would assume a great deal of the old tooling still exists to make a new CC 100. IH didn't invest a great deal of money into tooling to begin with since they figured the market was only 20,000 tractors per year, then ended up making half a MILLION in 18 years, or about TEN times as many as they predicted. So most of the parts to duplicate the frame and other structural components of a 100 would be cheap with today's laser & CNC press brake technology.
The patterns & core boxes for the frt axles, rearends, and all the forgings for the gears & shafts in the transmission could get expensive. I guess MTD could farm all those parts out to Midwest Super Cub. They don;t seem to have a problem supplying ANYTHING for CC's!