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RAW: Like some of the others, I've heard these stories of Cummins and Shepard diesels in M tractors. If you take yourself back to that time in history, farmers were wanting diesel, but at the same time were shying away from slow starting machines, ie, gas start and pup start. Cummins and Shepard knew IH weren't going to bring that British direct start M to the northern half of North America. They believed they had a better starting engine for cold winter climates. Cummins in particular has always been a builder of deisel engines. That precisely is their claim to fame. Probably put on quite a sales pitch to IH. I can remember those days, direct start diesel was wave of the future. If I had been Cummins in those days, seeing a manufacturer like IH, at that time leader in the farm equipment industry, I would have been trying to convince IH my diesel was their best option. Yes I can see a company like Cummins spending the money to do a dozen conversions. From Cummins point of view in the 1950s, Cat was the diesel competition not Deere. I think both Cummins and Shepard made one mistake, the diesel they used didn't generate as much power as the IH gas or diesel engines being used at the time. Of course IH went on to develop some damn good, direct start diesels of their own, really didn't take a back seat to anyone except Cat. And don't think for one minute Cat didn't have the same ideas. I've heard Cat's approach was wanting to buy out IH construction equipment and in turn build diesels for IH farm tractors and trucks. Truly Cat probably wanted the whole company. Of course number one to the power brokers on both sides was their own back pocket. What you and I might like to have used on our farms was number two.
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