[AT] IH Fast Hitch

Sat Mar 2 22:24:52 PST 2019

I am not aware of John Deere asking to buy rights to the Fast Hitch.  I
cannot think of a reason why they would.  John Deere made a commitment to
the three point Hitch concept on their 1953 JD 40 and the decision to design
that was made long before the law suit between Ferguson and Ford was settled
in 1952. Actually the decision was made in 1949.  JD decided to add three
point equipment to future row crop tractor designs in 1953 when they were
designing the 20 series for announcement in 1956. The also did a crash
development of a quasi-three point hitch, the 800 series hitches  in early
1953 which was announced in the fall of 1953  for the early numbered series
tractors which did not have a provision for an active top link for load and
depth control.  In 1955 they announced the 801 version of the hitch which
offered mechanical load and depth sensing with advertised traction
improvements of up to 40%. John Deere realized early on that farmers did not
like having to buy proprietary implements based on which brand tractor they
owned.  The knew the JD 40 could benefit from having a 3 point hitch for
improved traction so they included that in the design and anticipated they
would have to fight the Ferguson Patent issues but..... that problem went
away a year before the 40 was announced. However, John Deere did not really
think a 3 point was needed on the .Waterloo built tractors due to the fact
that the Waterloo built tractors already had about 70% of the weight on the
rear axle and did not have traction issues like the 40. But they suddenly
changed course in early 1953 and did the crash development of the 800 series
hitches while they were also developing the three point hitch on the 20
series for announcement in 1956. All the integral implements that ere
designed for the 800 hitch were automatically compatible with the 20 series
tractor 3 point hitch. John Deere made the commitment to the three point
hitch earlier than the other manufacturers who will still trying to sell
proprietary hitches and implements.  When JD announced the 20 series
tractors with standard three point hitches JD' started gaining market share
from Ford and I/H. In fact by the 1958/1959 period was when became the
largest maker of wheeled agricultural tractors. With their supposedly
obsolete two Cylinder tractor design. I'H management made some serious
mistakes that really hurt their tractor sales one of which was the
460/560/660 tractors that had had HP increases without adequate increase in
r4ear end capability. Which started a steep decline of I/H's dominance in
the tractor arena. By the 1963/1964 time frame John Deere to the lead away
from I/H as the largest maker of agricultural equipment of all types. JD's
announcement of the New Generation tractors in the fall of 1960 was the
final blow that allowed them to become the dominate the market from that
point on. Then when the 80's turmoil hit the weaker manufactures either went
out of business of merged with other manufacturers to survive. Those
manufacturers who continued to push proprietary hitch past 1952/1953 time
frame paid dearly in market share since the standardized 3 point hitch was
clearly the winner.  Farmers did not want to have buy proprietary implements
that would only work with one brand of tractor. In the mid 50's John Deere
took the lead with the ASAE to develop standards in the agricultural
industry to provide guidance for all manufactures by establishing industry
standards for the dimension requirement  of the three point hitch. It just
so happened that those standards happened to be what JD had developed for
their 20 series tractors. The other manufactures had to adapt to the JD
standards.  It was a bit of a coup on JD's part.   Or could be called
excellent planning and marketing. 

Dean VP
Apache junction, AZ

-----Original Message-----
From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com> On Behalf Of James Peck
Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 8:24 PM
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Subject: Re: [AT] IH Fast Hitch

Oliver seemed to be following a pretty good strategy. They started designing
three point hitch into their post WW2 tractors but selling it as an option.
They did not seem to waste effort pushing a noncompatible proprietary hitch.

In 1987 I paid about 7-8 K to get a Compaq 386 with 19 inch color monitor
and graphics card.. That was bargain basement price about then. All the
trade press was claiming that the market would follow the new PS bus that
IBM developed. Compaq the clone maker won that round. I bet right. IBM and
the trade press bet wrong and IBM sold out to the China based Lenovo. 

[Indiana Robinson] If they had Al they would have probably been too dumb to
make them cross compatible... :-) If they had gotten together and made them
fully cross compatible and maybe pulled in some decent third brand (like
Oliver) they would have had a good chance of walking away with control.
There was a couple of down sides to the IH Fast Hitch (like about anything
else on the planet) but as I mentioned recently we had a new International
300 Utility tractor in the mid 1950's with Fast Hitch. I always like that
tractor... About the only thing I would change if I had one now would be to
build an insulated heat shield over the top of the hydraulic tank under the
seat. That and the steel lines by your leg got really really hot during long
runs.
I also liked the Fast Hitch. The biggest down side I recall was that when
plowing if you crossed an old fence line, back furrow or ridge at a right
angle the tail of the plow would raise out of the ground or if you crossed a
dead furrow or dip it tried to bury itself a bit. Not a big problem really,
more of an annoyance.
The other downside was that we (like many others) already had a full stable
of 3 point equipment and IH was far more interested is selling new
implements than working at helping farmers adapt their existing implements
to the new Fast Hitch. We only had 3 Fast Hitch items... The plow, a sickle
mower and the drawbar. Yes, I consider the Fast Hitch drawbar to be an
implement. We kept a long drawbar extension on it and I loved being able to
release the lock on the lever and drop the drawbar down and back into an
implement hitch, like a wagon tongue and lift it up off of the ground
without climbing off of the tractor. I used that extension tip as a jack for
all kinds of things.
After plowing and disking we put the most hours on the 300 U pulling the hay
chopper (AC), the combine (Deere) and the corn picker (Woods Bros. then New
Idea). One thing I liked about the 300 U we had was that it had wider rear
tires than I ever see on them now at shows. I don't recall but it must have
been an option.
I recall several dealers we knew ordering all of the tractors with a few
options already on them from the factory that they kept on the floor. Wider
tires and rims was one of those frequent options here. Another such option
was often a more deluxe seat.
One big advantage the Fast Hitch had over AC's Quick Coupler was that you
could see the Fast Hitch at a glance (The same for Case Eagle Hitch) but on
the AC hitch couple you were flying by the seat of your pants and guessing
at what was going on down there under the tractor out of sight.

[James Peck] Did Deere ask to buy Fast Hitch rights after they already had
three point hitch with Draft and position control developed in 1953 on the
JD 40. Maybe it was a backup strategy.

https://www.farmcollector.com/implements/the-ih-fast-hitch-story
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