8N Grill

To celebrate this event, the next 48 tractors were painted lavender and yellow. Regular red and grey paint was then added to the gun tanks, and gradually the more typical color was blended back into the production line.

Due to poor management however, the number of grills with holes did not match the number of Fergison System badges. So further down the line when the tractors started rolling in with their new paint schemes and no holes, Kenny Willard had over 4000 Fergison System badges (4318+1/2 to be exact) to install. So he started drilling the holes and mounting them there. As it was a production line, and rushed, these holes are not perfectly centered.

Now the second and third shift Fergison System badge installers (Jesse Clemins and Ralph Hall) didn't bother with the hole drilling process, and simply used available wire or tape to tie the badge onto the grills. Jesse favored the X pattern, while Ralph leaned towards two bands.

The reason there was a half badge included in that inventory was because Willard Dobson from the tire mounting section dropped one and broke it when he came over to admire the new paint schemes. Only one half of the badge was recovered. Being a frugal company, that half badge was still mounted, but was glued on top of the Ford emblem on the hood. This hood was brush painted to commemorate it. This is a very rare tractor, as it is the only one known to be factory painted with a brush.

So remember, if you happen to come across an 8N with a very unusual paint scheme, with a Fergison System badge tied to the grill, don't eschew this tractor! It's a very rare collectors piece!

And if you happen to see one with brush marks on the hood, pay anything to get hold of it, for this is the rarest 8N of them all!

:-)

Did you know that a 2N was used in the making of Jaws? Yep!

Back then in the early seventies, Steven Spielberg wasn't the well known celeb he is today. So a lot of his special effects and equipment were more mundane.

Now a neighbor of his happened to have an old 2N, and kept bragging about the way it would chew through brush and briars when he was a hog'n, like a shark in a swim'n hole. Ole Steve, he put two and two together, and came up with three! Not only did he decide to make a movie about a shark, but he used that very 2N to play the roll of the shark itself.

Being kinda low budget, they put a shark body all around that tractor. Even putting in a shark tooth grill to look like a mouth. The mouth was hinged so that when they would run the tractor into the water hard the spray would cause it to swing open.

Now it's kinda funny you say your left brake is broken. Remember the scene in the movie where the shark turns to the right into the back of the boat and crashes into it? Well it seems that in filming that scene the left brake broke on that 2N, causing it to turn to the right crashing into the boat by accident. That's why the acting was so good in that scene! Old Zanuck was beside himself over the cost of all that damage! But Spielberg showed his creativity and skills by rewriting the story to include that as part of the movie. I kid you not!

Now anyone could have a tractor with a sharks mouth on it. But to have one with a broken left brake, and a 2N as well...Seems to me that you just might have the genuine article great white!

Check yours and see if that grill is kinda hinged at the bottom. If it is, run it real fast into a river and see if it swings open like a mouth. Stomp on the brakes, and if it swings into a nearby boat biting it, you've got the gen-u-ine Great White N!

And did you know that the sound track for that movie came from the muffler? Yep, having a low mounted exhaust, when the tractor would get kinda deep in the water the exhaust would start burbling through like an outboard, with a blub blub sound. Steve liked it, and stylized it as that Dub Dub sound track you'd here whenever the shark showed up.

I kid you not!