Bill Daniels wrote:

Not a great 'general purpose' aircraft perhaps, but it excels at the
narrowly defined mission it was built for which was to do heavy work at 60
knots with state provided fuel. With the radial replaced with a Lycoming,
it does better on fuel consumption.

Despite it's massive ugliness and some concessions give to it because
it's a tail dragger, it's performance numbers are not substantially
different than a 172 (gross weight, operating speeds, etc...).