Caravelle III and VI-N (the earlier types) did not have thrust reversers on their Rolls Royce Avon engines. The VI-R (R for reverse) introduced this feature for the United order, as did the 10/11/12 types with P&W JT8Ds. Air France, among others, continued to buy the III model throughout, their last new one (airframe 260 out of 280 total produced) came in 1970.
Deploying the brake parachute was a nuisance for the station engineer, who was responsible for repacking it. At mainstream stations substitute ready-packed chutes were available for substitution, but if there were none then it was probably good if the engineer had some skydiving club experience. The chute could also be released on the runway after deployment, whereupon it might blow about until the engineer in their van managed to chase and catch it. This was yet another feature which caused the FAA to say about the original models "no way". As well as requiring the drop-down oxy system they also rejected the flight deck windows as being too small, so from the VI-R onwards these are notably larger.