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Keith: Don't ever think they weren't paying royalties it Europe, Australia and New Zeland. In those countries it was have 3 point or you were not in the market. Fast hitch was nothing more than an attempt to control the North American farm equipment market. Had they built quality into fast hitch, TA and IPTO, they might have pulled it off. Fast hitch on big tractors should have had an independent drawbar for trailing implements. TA should have been non free wheeling by the time 40-60 tractors were introduced. IH IPTO was a joke compared to Cockshutt and Oliver until 1963. Basically 10 years wasted, and those 3 items drove customers away in large numbers. I used to do some business with a MF dealer, established in 1956. He claimed the best thing he had going for him as a start up dealer, trying to gain market share, was IH fast hitch, TA and IPTO. He told me that MF dealers across the continent were experiencing the same. In my imediate area MF, DB, JD, AC and Cockshutt all estabilshed successful dealerships during that 10 year period IH was flogging fast hitch. All these companies did have a presence prior to 1955, however they were little more than another business with a couple of tractors out front, and damn little parts backup. Prior to 1955, our IH dealer was a full time farm equipment business, with as many as 20 new and used tractor in inventory. They were well enough established, one could walk in and buy parts off the shelf for machines built prior to 1920. That parts supply was the biggest single reason why my family stuck with IH. Second reason, we were not using mounted equipment, thus hitch was not an issue right then. I watched this progression of non IH dealers growing their business in leaps and bounds. Many of these guys were upstarts with very little capital behind them, yet they grew as IH went into decline. IH did gain back some market share with 06 and 56 series tractors, then after 1975 went into steady decline until they were gone in 1998. Today the MF dealer sells IH parts. The only other presence IH has is CNH. That is the results in my hometown, and if you travel much, there are like stories all across North America. It doesn't matter how much a particular individual likes a certain make of tractor or equipment, if his neighbors aren't buying it, there will not be parts around in good supply. And if one made his living in this game of farming, equipment with a good parts supply was and still is extremely important.
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