The Super Beast Lives

In the early 1970s, Allis-Chalmers joined the ranks of the manufacturers offering articulated four-wheel drive tractors. They started by rebadging the Bearcat from Stieger in 1972 and calling…

1965 Cockshutt 1550 Wheatland

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…

Scheid Diesel Extravaganza 2020

When industry giants like Dan Scheid and Jeremy Wagler team up on something, you’re going to get your money’s worth. Such was the case for the 24th running of the August blockbuster known as…

The Scout: International Harvester

The International Scout was diesel before diesel was cool. Diesels were nothing new for International Harvester, in their truck lines and, of course, in the agricultural and off-highway…

Sheppard Tractors: One of Three

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 TWO FACES OF THE IH TD-6 CRAWLER

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…

VINATGE SMOKE

Caterpillar was on a roll before World War II and rapidly dominating the crawler market. The war sped that roll up and they were smart and agile…

TRACTOR TALK

The early 1960s marked the beginning of the large scale application of turbocharging to diesels in the tractor world. Massey-Ferguson’s (MF) first…

VINTAGE SMOKE

OLIVER POWER UNITS Like most Tractor manufacturers, the Oliver Corporation looked for other venues…

TRACTOR TALK

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 Big Minnie

By the mid-1960s, Minneapolis-Moline had a long history of success behind it, but in all that history, they had not yet built a big, six-cylinder-powered row crop tractor. What’s a row crop…

A New Breed

What International Harvester called the “New World of Power” launched them into their first line of six-cylinder tractors in 1958.…

THE MUSTANG OF TRACTORS

Ford Tractor Operations turned a major corner in 1968 when the new 8000 debuted. It replaced Ford’s First six-cylinder tractors, the 6000 and 6000 Commander (’61-’67), and did so in a big way.…

THE ENGINE THAT ANSWERED QUESTIONS

It’s easy to forget how much engineering goes into a quart of oil. We all know how much depends on that oil. What many don’t know is how the advancement of diesel engine technology stumbled in…