That would sure be a special built tractor, wonder if it is red or yellow?
The early steam engines were big power plants. They got adapted to somewhat mobile tillage use, but only in wide open big areas.
The gas tractors were much more mobile and adaptable, and were generally designed to replace a team of horses. They pulled the equipment at hand, the horse equipment. 15-25hp worked well for that.
Farms were always family run, so maybe had 3 teams, maybe lot more on some farms run by 2-3 brothers, their sons, and the old man helping some yet.
A bigger tractor could replace 2 teams, if you bought the bigger equipment to go with it. Kinda had to, as the old man retired, and a couple of the sons got off the farm. Needed that bigger plow and bigger tractor to keep up with the work.
Then WWII came along and all the manufacturing plants were making tanks and airplanes, had to cobble along with the junk you had and only one son left on the farm rest were off fighting.
War was over, the soms didnt come back for long, but the manufacturing plants were tooled up to make much bigger stuff, buy one bigger tractor and equipment and you could run the three farms the family used to run. Had to.
The strange grain shortage of the 70s put huge dollars in your pockets, spend it on bigger equipment and farm more reinvest. Bigger equipment and bigger tractors were needed in a hurry, lot of backyard companies started making a few dozen or 100 big tractors. Versitle, Steiger, Bud, etc. JD and IHC hadnt kept up with the expansion demand and werent retooling quickly enough.
then the big crash of the 80s when you couldnt give grain away, land went back down 1/3 of its value, farms were bankrupt and banks consolidated the foreclosed on land into a few super farms, they needed bigger equipment but not many machines, as only a few farms survived with bank backing.
The ag dealers and companies fell on as hard times as the farmers, they couldnt ramp up development of new bigger stuff to meet demand, while sitting on expensive smaller equipment inventory.
20 years ago the get giant and get computerized controls came along, a little utility tractor is a 280hp front wheel assist, planter tractor is a 450-600 tractor now.
Only need a few made per year, as these machines can cover 4000 acres per farmer, instead of the 40 acres of those old first 23hp tractors.
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Today's Featured Article - Restoration Story: Fordson Major - by Anthony West. George bought his Fordson Major from a an implement sale about 18 years ago for £200.00 (UK). There is no known history regarding its origins or what service it had done, but the following work was undertaken alone to bring it up to show standard. From the engine number, it was found that this Major was produced late 1946. It was almost complete but had various parts that would definitely need replacing.
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