"Crowbar gear" Mooney
Have a lot of time in an Mooney M20C (commonly called the Mark 21) and fly one now -- with the old "crowbar" gear. The "crowbar" is a large Johnson bar with a sliding collar on it, that sticks up from the floor to the bottom of the instrument panel, where the sliding collar latches into a casting with a release button. At the other end of its travel, it swings back and down to the floor, and latches into a casting there.
On the one hand, they take getting a little used to -- but on the other, they're utterly reliable, very simple, and EASY if you do it right.
The big secret is to stay at 80 MPH after takeoff until you've got the gear up. Push the release button, pull the collar down, swing the bar to the UP (floor) position rapidly, and push it briskly into the latch. The faster you're going, the harder it gets, and above 100 MPH it's just about impossible to get it into the UP latch. Ditto extending the gear. It's easy at about 100 MPH (the limit is 120).