Cletrac created a new market segment in 1916 when it introduced the diminutive model R crawler. When Rollin H. White founded Cleveland Motor Plow Company in…
Even if we don’t know the term, we’ve all seen badge engineering at work. Take a vehicle platform of one brand name, change it up a little, add new paint and a different badge and call it…
Sheppard Tractors are among the rarest of the orphan tractors. We covered a ‘51 Sheppard SD-3 for you back in 2015 and you can see the story online at…
The 1950s was the last decade in which the small crawler was a player in the agricultural tillage industry. To that time, crawlers (A.K.A. tracklayers) offered farmers a lot of drawbar power…
The 1960s had not been good to J.I. Case. Besides the ag market being a little wonky, they started the decade with a lot of internal management difficulties and a great deal of debt. Major…
The start of the ‘60s was when the passenger car horsepower races got hot and heavy, but not many car guys know the same thing was happening with tractors. The difference was farmers…
Sheppard SD3: The Best Tractor You’ve Never Heard Of
In the late ’40s and early ’50s, diesel-powered tractors were just starting to increase their market share against gasoline and distillate (kerosene) power tractors. It was…
Canada isn’t generally known for her tractors, but one Canadian tractor manufacturer made a mark on the world: Cockshutt. The company started in 1882, when James Cockshutt formed the Cockshutt…
1959 Porsche-Diesel Standard Model: The Schlepper Project
Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) had his hands into just about everything with an engine. By the time he started his own engineering firm in 1931, Dr. Porsche had acquired a great deal of…