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vintage tractors

8K views 61 replies 13 participants last post by  Drilling Man 
#1 · (Edited)
#2 · (Edited)
http://www.tractordata.com

For a reason I am not sure of, for years, and a lot of them, I had ill feeling towards John Deere, even though one grand-father had one you started by hand with a fly wheel.
Oliver and Minneapolis Moline were the ones whose site at the State Fair I really looked forward to visiting then White bought them and killed them.


Here are the biggest MM and Oliver tractors before white turned them totally into brand engineering.







BUT when I went to the State fair in the early sixties and saw my first John Deere 5020 , my jaw dropped at what was then the biggest tractor I ever saw and I believe the biggest tractor available at the time.


Then came the 100 HP race and every one was bring out a tractor with at least 100 hp and more,

Nowadays 100 HP is a medium size tractor, Kobuta who used to be one of those little foreign jobs has a 170HP model.
When I go to a fair, state or county, machinery hill is the highlight for me, IF it has one.
John Deere and Kubota are the only two with company displays at the Minn. State Fair.



Now John Deere is the only U.S. tractor company that is not part of merger, though they have bought up a fair number of foreign makes, so my grudge against them faded away.
I do go to a lot of the tractor sites on line and try to get to farm threshing and vintage tractor shows, though now that dad is gone, not like I used to.
The biggest current offerings and vintage shows are in Illinois and I am going to get to them sooner rather than later.
The boys, who collect tractors from the sixties to eighties want one with out cabs. They have a term for it I cannot remember.
Same goes for no Front Wheel Assist, those are the more desirable, oddly John Deere was the last one to make FWA an option on their biggest tractors.
 
#6 ·
#3 ·
The one I owned and loved never fail to start was a mod SC 1952 case 3 point hook up and the thing would run on any type of gas you put in it.

DSeaconllb
 
#4 ·
I like to see the vintage tractor pulls at the county fair.... but wouldn't pay a dime to see the loud, hot rod tractors..just me, I guess..

I liked some of the old Case tractors too.

Some of the old tractors which performed better than I expected in the vintage pulls at the fair, were the old Allis chalmers W45 and WD45...along with an old MM model U, which was a regular there.

..And oh yes..I got tractors spelled correctly...just a clumsy typo..

.
 
#19 · (Edited)
I like to see the vintage tractor pulls at the county fair.... but wouldn't pay a dime to see the loud, hot rod tractors..just me, I guess..

I liked some of the old Case tractors too.
Some of the old tractors which performed better than I expected in the vintage pulls at the fair, were the old Allis chalmers W45 and WD45...along with an old MM model U, which was a regular there.
..And oh yes..I got tractors spelled correctly...just a clumsy typo..
.
While the radical tractor pulling tractors first came out of the U.S. of A. while net searching, because I could, well over a decade ago, I found by accident a site on Euro tractor pulling which at that time I did not ever really know existed, and when I read what they were doing, waaaay back then I was amazed.
Some of their stuff makes U.S. boys look plain Jane.

Here is a Danish Diesel/gasoline tractor that shows how radical they really are.

https://www.dieselarmy.com/news/video-one-v8-two-v12s-four-turbos-one-mean-tractor/


I would like to take in a Garden Tractor , tractor pull where they put radical , non-automotive, engines into a garden tractor chassis.
The county fair here used to run them , and I could hear them a mile away.
 
#7 · (Edited)
AGCO is a large international company that bought Hesston Corperation in the 90s. At Hesston the tractors made our Massy Ferguson, Fendt and Valtra. They also make Gleaner and New Holland combines along with other equipment. I live about 10 miles from Hesston. For awhile in the late 80s or so they were owned by Fiat.
GuzziJohn
 
#8 ·
The old Fords seem to hold their value well in this area. While my friends were buying 4 wheelers, I started out with a gas powered Ford Jubilee like this one though not as clean.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/65/29/ce6529d2be81cd19c90c8a3d57598b73.jpg

Upgraded to a diesel Ford 801 which was a big step up till one of the horses decided to chew on the wiring. Big eye opener when I went over some wire that was hidden while mowing. One loop of wire came up and wrapped around my foot which was resting on the clutch pedal. It almost dragged me under the machine and bent the clutch arm with my foot still attached!

That’s when I took out a small loan and bought my 1st new tractor. The new 45HP machine had a platform that protected my feet, 4 WD, power steering, ROPS, shuttle shift, a bulkhead at the back that shielded me from bush hog debris and brakes that worked! It also goes anywhere and everywhere without complaint. (I have a lot of hills and uneven terrain)

Land vehicle Vehicle Tractor Agricultural machinery Automotive tire


Love them ol machines but I’d rather operate the newer gear.
 
#10 ·
There is a tractor site, although I have not looked at it for a fair bit, that lists how the companies that now are got there and how, and who, no longer exists world wide.
I have bought a fair number of books in the past ten years on tractors world wide; interesting and some times depressing story/stories.
The Ford 2n, 8n and 9n tractors were/are one of the most popular and useful tractors ever made (as well as teh Fordson that lasted in Europe for a long, long time).
My one grandfather had one and used converted horse-drawn with it till he sold the farm in the seventies.

They were, and maybe still are, ten years ago, being refurbished-re-engined and sold by a company with warranty overseas.


I had a three volume books set on the largest tractors ever made world wide but one volume disappeared and if one can even find it, what cost 40 bucks over ten years ago now is three times that much.


There are still some smaller companies but there are now three or four mega companies that own most of the former independent companies world wide.
We had what was one of the biggest National Tractor Pulls in my home town two week ends ago; it is close enough I could walk to it but have not made it yet.
I will get there in a year or two, and just walking in the pits looking at the radical tractors for me would be the high light.
Tractor pulling in Europe is just as big and radical as it is in the U.S. of A.
 
#11 ·
AGCO has "bought" all of those company's and more, they are an American company that has merged with no one...

They have made/sold some very good tractors over the years, although they are now concentrating on Massey for those that buy smaller tractors... AGCO owned, Fendt and Valtra make big tractors, and although you see them around, they aren't making smaller tractors that are the bulk of the sales today...

DM
 
#12 ·
AGCO was established in 1990 when executives at Deutz-Allis bought out Deutz-Allis North American operations from the parent corporation KHD (Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz), a German company that owned the Deutz-Fahr brand of agriculture equipment. KHD had purchased portions of the Allis-Chalmers agricultural equipment business five years earlier.[3]
The company was first called Gleaner-Allis Corporation, then rearranged to be Allis-Gleaner Corporation, or AGCO. The Deutz-Allis line of tractors were renamed AGCO-Allis, and Gleaner became a brand of its own for combines. The Deutz-Allis brand continued in South America until 2001, when they were renamed AGCO-Allis. In 2001, AGCO Allis was renamed AGCO in North America.




In 1983, Allis-Chalmers sold Simplicity, the lawn and garden equipment division, to the division's management.[39]
1985 was a year of great dissolution for Allis-Chalmers—the year when it folded three of its main business lines:

  • The Fiat-Allis joint venture in construction equipment, over which the firms' managements had long since had a falling-out, ended when Fiat bought out Allis's remaining minority stake. It renamed the company Fiatallis.[40]
  • The Allis-Chalmers farm equipment business line ended when Allis sold it to K-H-D (Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, Deutz AG) of Germany, at the time the owner of Deutz-Fahr. K-H-D renamed the business as Deutz-Allis[39] and discarded the Allis Chalmers 8000 Series tractors and Persian Orange branding in favor of spring green tractors built by White Farm Equipment with Deutz air cooled engines.
  • The Siemens-Allis joint venture in electrical controls ended when Siemens bought out Allis's remaining minority stake. Siemens then blended the company into the Siemens Energy and Automation division.[38]
In 1988, Allis-Chalmers sold its American Air Filter filtration business (with 27 production facilities internationally and sales into 100+ countries) for approximately $225 million to SnyderGeneral Corporation of Dallas, a leading global air quality control firm.
In 1990, Deutz-Allis was sold to its management and became Allis-Gleaner Corporation (AGCO). Tractors began selling under the AGCO-Allis name and were again painted Persian Orange. The AGCO brand of orange tractors was produced until 2010 when AGCO announced that it was phasing out the brand.[41]
In 1998, what remained of the Allis-Chalmers manufacturing businesses were divested, and in January 1999, the company officially closed its Milwaukee offices. The remaining service businesses became Allis-Chalmers Energy in Houston, Texas.[39]
 
#15 ·
Curiously, those 3 Ford tractors were numbered according to the date of their introduction .. 9N..1939...2n..1942.. 8N..1948...

They always were a "handy" tractor...and this new age of "suburbanites moved to the country" folks, has kept up the price of the N series, when actually the jubilee series would have served them better..with OHV and live PTO.

I have heard that old Henry joined with Ferguson, just long enough to grab the Ferguson designed 3-point hitch.

When Henry decided to build his first Ford tractor, he found that he could not call it a Ford, because there was a man named Ford, who was building a tractor , I believe..right there in Michigan.

So, when he built it, he called it after his son..."Fordson". Quite a few Fordsons were built in England, ...and I believe, in Russia.

.
 
#16 ·
The first tractor I ever drove was my grandfathers 8N Ford. This would have been in the late 60's because it was before I was in school. He later bought a Case 470 that we used until maybe 5-6 years ago. It is still sitting at my uncles and is not is good shape at all. I was probably the last one to use it but it had got to where it was so seldom used that when I went to get it I had to spend and hour or so to get air in tires and battery charged and such that I just quit going to get it. I went without using a tractor from then until last year when I finally bought a John Deere 990.

Bruce
 
#17 · (Edited)
#18 ·
When that 1206 was new (late 1960s), I was working for a IH/New Holland dealer, as parts manager. Of course, I had all the info on parts, but not all the sales info.

SO , one day I asked our sales manager for a 'ballpark figure" for prices of the tractors.

He replied, "take the number on the hood....504, 707, 808 etc..and add a zero"... That's a far cry from the price of similar sized tractors today..

A salesman who I dealt with then, had worked in sales for John Deere..and I asked him a similar question about prices.

He said JD had a prepared statement, which went.."We are competitively priced...on the high side"..:tango_face_wink:

.
 
#20 ·
They run garden tractor pulls here often, with 100 + hp snowmobile engines in them and they are FAST...


Lots and lots of old tractor shows, pulls ect. going on here all summer. I was at a show yesterday and will go to another that includes steam, this coming weekend...


There's one going on weekly around here...


DM
 
#21 · (Edited)
Here are a few more from the Golden Age of conventional Agriculture tractors ruled before front-wheel-assist and front-wheel-drive took over .







1310 120 HP

Long was made in Romania and had a factory display at the Minn. State Fair for a fair number of years but now the Euro. tractor companies have also either gone belly-up or been taken over by other companies.
 
#23 · (Edited)

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#24 · (Edited)
I grew up driving Allis-Chalmers tractors. I also hired out to a neighbor some and got to run an M Farmall, a UB Moline also called a Twin City by a lot of farmers and a little Ferguson. I really didn't like the farmall and thought it crude and clunky compared to the ACs. The Moline was a beast back in those days with a bunch of power even though it ran on propane. The muffler on the Ferguson was clamped to one of the foot rests, the right one if my memory is correct, and it would cook your foot. Other than that it was a good little tractor but not up to the AC's in my probably biased opinion.



Like Ironglow I like the classic tractor pulls but there are none in my area. No tractor pulls of any kind as a matter of fact. I attended some in the early days but they all went away in my area years ago. Now it's youtube if I want to watch although I believe RFD network carries some programming but I dropped the Dish package that had that channel on it. Tell you what though, I can watch and enjoy the multi motor rigs and really like the super diesel class. LOTS of black smoke when they get on the turbo. Back when there were local pulls there was a family from Ackerly, TX that ran two big diesels in those shows and the drivers were the teenage sons. One of the brothers was still competing and doing quite well with his Farmall when I last had RFD network a couple of years ago. His pulling rig has always been the "Red Horse".


I just googled red horse pulling tractor and found both brothers are still competing and still running the latest version of the Red Horse and Wild Horse International diesels.



I have a small tractor and it's orange. Of course it's a Kubota, not an AC. Good piece of equipment but I miss that Allis Chalmers name.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Yep! when I was a kid in the 1950s, we had Farmalls..an "H" and a "C".. If I had a job to do and the C would do it..that is the one I preferred to use, because it was so "handy".

Being as that was the 1950s, and corn had to be cultivated, our tractors were both narrow front...rather tricky on hillsides. Rule #1..if it starts to tip on a hillside, steer downhill..not uphill.

In fact, when we got the c, it was sold because it rolled on a hillside and killed the elderly man who was operating it. His granddaughter was standing on the drawbar when the accident happened, but of course, she jumped clear.

That Farmall C had a steering wheel from an old Chevy, all the time we had it... just a reminder to this kid, I guess!

See examples of C & H below.

.
 

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#26 ·
Ah those have comfort seats.:D

When dad was young grandpa still had horses for working the field and Dad swore that 0amned cold steel seat was what gave him some misery when he got older.
In my home town area it was not until at least the late sixties that the last gent who farmed with horses around here retired and he was not Amish.
Those old tractors with steel seats and steel wheel must have been a miserable ride if they had to go far to the field.

Around here it almost seems as if farmers went from small to medium sized tractor to truly large ones in a very short order.
You still see some the size of the Farmalls , Ford N series etc. but few of the modern small ones that replaced them heads-up, although one gent who graduated a year behind me farms totally with tractors of 70-100 hp or so from the seventies.
 
#27 ·
Some of the older horse drawn seats were heavy cast iron. I presume they were like our tanks were. Whether it was hot or cold..heavy steel seems to magnify the conditions.

I mean 4" of homogenous armor plate, during the cold...is mighty cold...then when it is hot..the steel seems so much hotter than the ambient air.

.
 
#29 · (Edited)
I know where a Ford 8N is for sale. It's in very good condition and runs like a top. But she wants 3500 for it
and she won't budge off that price. But that includes the brush hog. It still seems a bit high to me.
N series Fords that run are no longer cheap.
They started gaining value about ten years ago, as have near all tractors.

Part of it was the growing tractor collecting item and partly they are the best in between garden and farm tractor size with the greatest parts availability.
She knows what she has.

As a side note, the newest farm collectors item is old combines.
Gents travel hundred of miles to find old ones to restore as most were trashed and face the fact of some types are simply gone, only pictures left that they existed.


One thing you see at many farm shows is gents have collections of old steel tractor seats and all the art designs they had, amazing variety.

Up here farm and threshing shows are starting to get into full swing, I better start planning which ones I can get to this year.
 
#31 ·
Put it this way, if you buy it and take GOOD care of it (oddly nowadays that mean appearance factor also on farm equipment) if you sell it, you will not loses money.
That is assuming it is in as good of shape as your post say it is.

New bush hogs I know of sell for between 1,000 and 3,000 dollars depending on size.
 
#32 ·
$3,500.00 would be high for here! UNLESS it was all original and in REALLY good shape...

Old tractors have went down in price the last few years, not near as many young guys wanting them, as the old buzzards die off...

DM
 
#33 ·
$3,500.00 would be high for here! UNLESS it was all original and in REALLY good shape...
Old tractors have went down in price the last few years, not near as many young guys wanting them, as the old buzzards die off...
DM
Sadly I have not heard it for a lot longer than I like but there is a show on AgriTalk Radio, called Machinery Pete where they talk about tractor and machinery prices.
If you can try to catch it on a farm radio AM station in your area; definitely interesting and enlightening on such things.
It is on RFD-TV but cable costs too much to get that and of course it is on the premium group.
 
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