[AT] Tractor colors

Indiana Robinson robinson46176 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 10 16:17:42 PST 2009


On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Mike Sloane <mikesloane at verizon.net> wrote:
> My guess is that Henry Ford was following his supposed comment about the
> Model T: "you can have any color you want as long as it is black"
> philosophy. Remember that he was trying to compete on price as well as
> performance, and most farmers of the '30s weren't appreciative of pretty
> colors if it cost a penny more.
>
> Judging from the histories of the Ford N that I have read, Ferguson was
> pretty much the "silent" partner in the production of the tractors and
> had little to say relative to styling and color schemes. The gray color
> of the 1939-47 tractors was considerably darker than the gray used on
> the 1948-54 versions. I gather that some dealers would repaint the older
> machines when they took them in on trade (or used two or three old ones
> to make one more less "rebuilt" tractor for sale). Owners and dealers
> had no reservations about mixing parts of different machines to get one
> working tractor to sell or use. Many a 9N and 2N got the "red belly
> treatment after a major rebuild in order to make it look "modern". In
> fact, when I was rebuilding my 2N, there was evidence of the remains of
> red paint in various places, but all the part numbers tracked with the
> 1946 production dates.
>
> As far as the name, if you look at the advertising and service
> literature of the times, the only place you will see "Ferguson" is when
> it is coupled with the word "System" as somewhat an afterthought. The
> advertising was strictly "Ford". Calling a Ford N a "Fordson" is really
> inappropriate - the US Fordson tractor had been out of production for a
> decade before the 9N was released and has nothing in common with the old
> Fordson. In the UK, however, the Fordson name continued on for decades.
>
> Mike
=======================================


I suspect that you are correct about the basic black and people not
spending any extra especially farmers. Also Ford was competing as much
as possible with gray IH tractors in the planning stages and had been
with the old gray Fordsons.
A few weeks ago I actually saw a 9N in person that was painted the
original colors. :-)
I was eyeballing one for sale in the next county today and it is a
"peeling" red-belly. One I did some work on for a neighbor a couple of
years ago is a blue-belly. It actually looks quite nice. Lots of
red-bellies as you say. I recently saw one that was red all over but
it was a really crappy job and was about thin enough to read a
newspaper through the paint. I have seen a few all blue ones.
When Case IH became one somebody had an old SC Case at the Indiana
State Fair that was painted the new Case IH colors. It too was a
pretty crappy paint job. I believe a huge part of pulling off a non
original paint job is to do the job extra carefully especially the
masking and surface prep.
I have seen several non John Deere tractors painted John Deere green
and yellow. Those colors look very good on Deere but somehow never
look very good on something else.
A progressive AC dealer here sold a "lot" of nicely rebuilt WC's, WD's
and WD-45's that had cream wheels and accents. My own AC-C has Cream
wheels and accents done partly because I just like it and partly as a
sort of a tip of my hat to the shop foreman of that dealership (dealer
gone, foreman deceased) who worked heavily with the old 4-H tractor
maintenance project. I learned a lot good common sense tractor stuff
from him and I have always been very grateful. I usually hang a sign
on the C when I show it explaining that reason. It also has 1964 Ford
Falcon front wheels on it (the originals were rusted away) that came
from the car that my sister's first husband was killed in (by a wild
twit). He was the closest thing to a brother I had. I could easily
afford new wheels but when I think about replacing them something just
stops me.
Many of those Allis rebuilds were sold at the county fair with brand
new New Idea mounted corn pickers on them. They almost always sold the
first day of the fair but the buyer had to leave them sitting on
display for the week.
-
Just curious... How many here have a tractor that is painted non
original colors and if so did you buy it like that or did you paint
it?


-- 
Have you hugged your horses today?

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com



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