[AT] Cub - Update

[szabelski at wildblue.net]

>From what I’ve read, management was pushing for max profits and disregarded the designers and engineers, as well as not listening to what the farmers were telling them what they wanted/needed. They started pushing out tractors that couldn’t keep up with Deere like they did in the beginning. I believe this was right after they brought in outsiders to run everything. Case must have seen some profitability in buying IH or they wouldn’t have purchased it. But by then I think IH lost whatever lead they may have had. 

IH and Deere went head to head for a long time, always coming up with a better model than the other guy. But when you start to cheapen things to improve profits, something always has to give. The big three learned that lesson and went big on quality programs in order to stay in business. Even Chrysler came back from going out of business.

With all the various manufacturers at that time, you wouldn’t think that one of the top manufacturers would be the one to lose out. I think it would make more sense that one or more of the smaller manufacturers would eventually lose out to the two top manufacturers. Unless one of the top manufacturers wasn’t capable of competing with even the smaller manufacturers for one or more reasons.

I can remember this being discussed dozens and dozens of times on this site since I first signed on.  I don’t mean to ruffle any feathers. Both IH and Deere made good tractors at one time. Everybody who purchased red, defended their choice to no end. Everybody who purchased green, likewise, defended their choice to no end. Nobody wants to say that they made a mistake and admit that they got the wrong color. That still goes on to today. 

I have a buddy who prefers green, and I prefer red. We’re always yanking each other’s chain whenever it comes to tractor talk and shows.

Just like in sports, any call against your team is a bad call, even if it’s a correct call. Any call favoring your team is a good call, even if it’s a incorrect call.


Carl

PS: GO RED!!!!

----- Original Message -----
From: Howard Pletcher <hrpletch at gmail.com>
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wed, 08 Jul 2020 19:13:01 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [AT] Cub - Update

Sounds like you think the downfall stemmed from the tractor problems.
Tractors were about 40% of the company and couldn’t have saved the company
even if there were no problems.  The real mismanagement was in the
financial area going back as far as the 20s & 30s.

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:37 PM Brian VanDragt <bvandragt at comcast.net> wrote:

> IH has had plenty of time to catch up, but they just can't.
>
> Brian
>
> --
Howard