Holy hell, this is terrifying! Let me get this right: do 14 different things you're not at all used to doing. And if you make a small error, you can easily trash the motor, break your wrist, cause an accident. Have I summarized this correctly? Wow.
No, you won't trash the motor, but if is full of gas it can get pretty hard to get it back out...
But if you're not prepared for the backlash of the crank then you could easily get hurt, so better be careful, after all it is an engine.
There is a good reason starter motors were not considered to be a luxury by the public at large, even though Henry Ford thought otherwise. He lost a lot of market share due to that decision alone. With some luck there is a starter motor there, which will make this a lot easier.
Fun fact: the Citroen DS's sold in 1975 still had an emergency starter crank shipped as a standard, and you could , if you really wanted, still crank it by hand. I tried once and figured that it had more symbolic than practical value.
If anything then getting such an oldie to run and take it for a spin will make you appreciate how much you take for granted when operating a modern car, and that even though conceptually nothing has changed the implementation itself is what makes all the difference.
