[AT] Grain Augers - now Long equipment

Grant Brians sales at heirloom-organic.com
Fri Dec 30 09:35:15 PST 2011


     Long Tractors, that is an interesting and ugly story!
     Here is what Tractordata says about them:
Long Manufacturing built its first tractor in 1948. The company, however,
soon stopped building their own and began importing tractors from Uzina
Tractorul Brasov (UTB) and some Landinis. Long filed for bankruptcy in 1985,
but returned by 1987 after a reorganization. In 1998, Long Agribusiness was
purchased by the Escort Group of India. The Long name was dropped in favor
of the Farmtrac brand. Farmtrac North America stopped business in late 2008.

     Adding to that information, Long resold tractors during most of the
time they "built" tractors. The 1970s through 1990s models started out as
all rebadged UTB (Universal Traktor Brasov) Romanian built from old Fiat
tooling knockoffs. For a time White also sold some of the UTB's, but they
insisted on a minimal level of quality control, unlike Long. Those tractors
were 2, 3 and 4 cylinder models that if cared for and not pushed too hard
could hold up fairly well - notice the provisos. As a note, the 445 was the
first model Long Diesel UTB tractor and would have been the one David refers
to.
     Then they added some Czech Zetor built models that had the stickers for
Long. These were in the 60-105hp range. This was during the time that Zetor
had not yet established their rudimentary dealer network in North America
and 1984 was the last year for the rebadged Zetors. After the Zetor
relationship fell apart, they returned to only UTB tractors.
     After the 1998 sale, the brand and assets of the Long Tractor company
became interesting again. Long and then Farmtrac badged tractors were now
built in  India and China. All of the models I saw when they made their last
push into the US market were copies of old IH, 8N sheetmetal over a Chinese
compact tractor or Huangdong (I think that is the right name) models that
had decals in English pasted over the spots where the Chinese would have
gone - or in some cases were underneath the English! The Engines were new
Chinese Diesels whether Indian or Chinese made, but some models had the US /
UK tooling for the Steering, transmissions and rear ends. It was interesting
to see the flaws in the tooling that had developed since the tooling had
been sold from the original owners in the 1970s and where they had and had
not tried to correct them.
     I have a 1970s Long 4WD mudder tractor. To look at it it appears to be
a Fiat Ford model until you look closely. Then you see the differences and
the 1950s/early 1960s Fiat mechanicals including the diesel engine with only
a more modern Alternator added. The Power steering is funky eastern European
design and the metallurgy is sketchy, so a few places have oversize
components to compensate. There were quite a few sold during several years
in the 1970s/1980 when other Row Crop tractors were hard to get and the low
price appealled to some people because times had been hard a few years
before. Virtually all of them were retired from active use very quickly
though. Mine I got because it was going to just be scrapped.
           Grant Brians
           Hollister,California vegetable, nuts and fruit farmer
-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of David Bruce
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 1:14 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Grain Augers


My uncle bought a Long 442 (I think - CRS happens frequently here) when
I was Jr high age.  He like my dad was a weekend farmer so the tractor
didn't get real hard use.  When I left to go to college that tractor was
still here but when I returned to the area about 20 years later it had
been sold.  Never heard any really bad about it but also never any good.
  I did drive it some before I left home - ok but not great.

David
NW NC

On 12/29/2011 11:17 PM, Al Jones wrote:
> When I was in college, I had to take an ag engineering class for my major.
It was a pretty interesting course, at least the lab was.  We spent a lot of
time in class learning welding symbols and a lot of theory about metalurgy,
etc. that you would never, ever, EVER use in a high school classroom.  Come
to find out, the instructor had worked for Long at some point.  I must say
my confidence in his abilities plummeted when I heard that.....He must've
been a pretty competent ag engineer though to have sense enough to quit
them!
>
> They sold a lot of grain bins and related equipment here.  I guess it's
hard to screw up a grain bin. Again their augers were pretty rube goldberg.
>
> Long built some tractors too.  My dad likes to talk about the neighbor
that said it would be a LONG time before he was dumb enough to buy another
LONG!
>
> al
>
>
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