I agree with everything you said but the true killer for IH was the strike in 1979 and how management handled production afterwards. With biggest economic slowdown since the depression cash poor IH went to balls to the wall production thinking that 1980 and beyond would be repeats of 1979 (their best year ever and the last time they out sold John Deere). IH borrowed money at 22% interest to produce equipment that sat in dealers lots for years and ate away at "new" sales for years. You couldn't have drawn up a business plan to destroy a company (legally) any better than they did.
IH did a lot of things right and did some stupid things too. The 86 series should never have been produced. They were good tractors but the "50" series introduced in 1981 should have been the replacement for the 66 series. Their Axial Flow combines were a decade or more ahead of everyone else's, the "air planters" were another step ahead of everyone else.
IH made some misteps but what killed them was front office and their mentality that we're big and we'll always be here because we've always been here mentality - just like GM (Government Motors).
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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