Ford Tractor Company was a Minneapolis-based company active from 1916 to 1917, that built tractors to facilitate "horseless farming".
Ford Tractor Company was incorporated on March 15, 1915, by W. Baer Ewing and Paul W. Ford. [1] Prior to founding the company, Ewing worked in the insurance business. The choice of name has been assessed as deceptive by later commentators. Businessman W. Baer Ewing had hired tractor designer Robert Kinkaid to develop his product line, but named the company after one Paul Ford, a local hardware clerk Ewing had hired, allegedly to leverage the Ford name to take advantage of customer confusion with Henry Ford. [2] [3] The company may have hoped for a quick settlement with Henry Ford to acquire the name, but instead Henry Ford marketed his own line of tractors, beginning in 1916, under the brand name Fordson . [4]
On, June 19, 1916, Paul Ford was relieved of his duties with the company but still continued to receive compensation. [1]
An unsatisfactory Ford tractor was partly responsible for the establishment of the Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory. Nebraska farmer Wilmot F. Crozier's experience with the Ford and other tractors caused him to advocate for the establishment of testing requirements to verify tractor performance. In 1919 a law was passed in Nebraska mandating that tractors be tested on a standardized basis in order to be sold in the state. [5]
The company is the subject of a silent educational documentary produced in 1917, Horseless Farming With Ford Tractors. [6]
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commonly, the term is used to describe a farm vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize agricultural tasks, especially tillage, and now many more. Agricultural implements may be towed behind or mounted on the tractor, and the tractor may also provide a source of power if the implement is mechanised.
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting. It was mainly designed by an American and two Hungarian engineers. The Model T was colloquially known as the "Tin Lizzie", "Leaping Lena" or "flivver".
Fordson was a brand name of tractors and trucks. It was used on a range of mass-produced general-purpose tractors manufactured by Henry Ford & Son Inc from 1917 to 1920, by Ford Motor Company (U.S.) and Ford Motor Company Ltd (U.K.) from 1920 to 1928, and by Ford Motor Company Ltd (U.K.) from 1929 to 1964. The latter also later built trucks and vans under the Fordson brand.
Henry George "Harry" Ferguson was a British mechanic and inventor who is noted for his role in the development of the modern agricultural tractor and its three point linkage system, for being the first person in Ireland to build and fly his own aeroplane, and for developing the first four-wheel drive Formula One car, the Ferguson P99.
Fageol Motors was a United States manufacturer of buses, trucks and farm tractors.
Allis-Chalmers was a U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various industries. Its business lines included agricultural equipment, construction equipment, power generation and power transmission equipment, and machinery for use in industrial settings such as factories, flour mills, sawmills, textile mills, steel mills, refineries, mines, and ore mills.
Farmall was a model name and later a brand name for tractors manufactured by International Harvester (IH), an American truck, tractor, and construction equipment company. The Farmall name was usually presented as McCormick-Deering Farmall and later McCormick Farmall in the evolving brand architecture of IH.
Ford of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Technologies Limited, itself a subsidiary of Ford International Capital LLC, which is a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office in Laindon, Essex. It adopted the name of Ford of Britain in 1960.
The Ford N-series tractors were a line of farm tractors produced by Ford between 1939 and 1952, spanning the 9N, 2N, and 8N models.
Cockshutt was a large agricultural machinery manufacturer, known as Cockshutt Farm Equipment Limited (1957–1962), based in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
The Lester F. Larsen Tractor Test and Power Museum is a museum dedicated to preserving and documenting the history of Nebraska's tractor test law, operated by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (NU) in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. The Nebraska Tractor Test Law, passed in 1919 and administered by the university, requires performance testing on every tractor with forty horsepower or more sold in the state. The facility, initially established as the Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory, was renamed for longtime chief engineer Lester F. Larsen when it was converted into a museum in 1998. It is the only tractor testing museum and the only complete tractor test laboratory in the world.
Clarence Leo Best, usually known as C. L. Best, was an American manufacturing executive. C. L. Best founded the C. L. Best Gas Traction Company in 1910 then merged his company with Holt Manufacturing Company to form Caterpillar Tractor Company in 1925. C. L. Best was chairman of the board of Caterpillar Tractor Company from its founding until his death in 1951.
The Buckeye gasoline buggy, also known as the Lambert gasoline buggy, was an 1891 gasoline automobile, the first made in the United States. It was also the first automobile made available for sale in the United States. It was initially a three wheel horseless carriage, propelled by an internal combustion gasoline engine; it was later developed into a four-wheel automobile with a gearless transmission, and mass-produced during the first part of the twentieth century. The platform was later expanded into a line of trucks and fire engines.
Ford Dagenham is a major automotive factory located in Dagenham, London, operated by the Ford of Britain subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. The plant opened in 1931 and has produced 10,980,368 cars and more than 39,000,000 engines in its history. It covers around 475 acres and has received over £800 million of capital investment since 2000.
Samson Tractor was an American brand of tractors 1900 to 1923, of trucks from 1920 to 1923, and a General Motors brand from 1917 to 1923.
Ford commonly refers to:
The Farmall M is a large three-plow row crop tractor produced by International Harvester under the Farmall brand from 1939 to 1953. It was of International Harvester's "letter series". It succeeded the Farmall F-30. The M was incrementally updated with new model numbers as the Super M, Super M-TA, 400, and 450, but remained essentially the same machine. The original M used an International Harvester C248 4-cylinder in-line engine. Production of all versions lasted until 1954.
Thames was a commercial vehicle brand produced by Ford of Britain.
Ford Ireland is the Irish subsidiary of the United States-based automaker Ford Motor Company. With an assembly plant for motor vehicles, it was part of the automotive industry in Ireland.
The Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory (NTTL) is a program operated by the University of Nebraska in accordance with Nebraska law to test the performance of agricultural equipment that is to be sold in the United States for compliance with OECD standards. The NTTL has operated since 1920 as the common standard reference for tractor performance in the United States.