You don't have to have any special shifter. The shifter just moves a morse cable in and out. The only thing that's different is the notifiers on the gates that let you know what gear you are in, etc. You can relabel a standard shift gate and it will work just fine.
Now, if you want the ability to slam from first to reverse and vice versa, you need a rock gate. They are modified so that you have no gate between R-N-1. But, that also can be modified and done on a normal art carr shifter, etc. Maybe this image from Wide Open will help you understand....
