Dakota,

Our local Fordson dealer in Horncastle at the time told my dad the Halftrack would eventually replace all crawler tractors when he looked over a new one in their showroom!!, quite a bold statement I feel.
The salesman's talk at the time was "you have two tractors for the price of one" in the summer take the track conversion off, put on your rubber tyres and use the normal tractor, come winter when the going gets tough put your tracks back on for the winter ploughing.
In real practical terms I do not expect many owners did this, they were not the easiest thing to steer, always wanting to go straight on when turning at the headland, so the independent footbrakes had to help with turning, then the brake shoes soon wore out.

As I said before very interesting to see this concept return in recent years.

Malcolm

I never thought there would be an opportunity to post this photo on our Massey Forum.

You just never know and hope I don't get banned from the site posting green and yellow at a Corporate J-D event here in UK.
 The new "halftrack" in the centre of my Overtime Single Speed and Harry William's Waterloo Boy Twin Speed does show how the "halftrack" has progressed from the recent Roadless discussion on here.

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm, Very interesting and I will point out that these quadtracks (as they are called here in the US) are really popular. I dont know about over there in the UK, but here in the US they make a row crop version of the 9RX (in the background photo, although Im sure you knew that). They too are popular among farmers and even use them outside of row crop work. This is a very interesting thread, I hope it stays up. Cheers, Dakota

I love the rainbow!! Great pic!

Gary

It was quite a memorable day in many ways Gary, yes the double rainbow came with the heavy showers at the end of what had truly been a great successful Company Corporate Celebration day. (AGCO could of done just the same this summer of 2018, now they have just missed the boat).
 

I proudly wore my Massey Ferguson coat most of the day, leading the main parade through the ages of J-D with my 1916 Overtime,  the J-D commentator remarked on my choice of clothing, so my prompt reply was "Harry Ferguson first sold the Overtime tractor in Ireland, so the M-F jacket is all part of their shared history" he was lost for words on the microphone and could not argue.

Malcolm.

When this string was first started, I was thinking "Our First Massey Tractors", hence the story of Old Sam that I posted earlier.  Since we are branching out into the world of other brands (which I am fine with for this interesting and historical topic), I will share this different story.

When I was just a young lad, my Dad was farming with a Massey-Harris 44 and a Farmall H.  At the age of 7 or so, I was ready to start helping with field work, but Dad wasn't comfortable with me on the H.  So, he traded it for a slightly used 1953 Ford Golden Jubilee.  With the Jubilee, I had fenders (mud guards) for some protection, and I could easily slide off the seat and stand on the clutch.  Now Dad had help in the field!

The first two implements were a Ferguson two-bottom moldboard plow and a Ferguson 3-point rigid 2-row cultivator.  I remember working with my Grandpa using bricks to try and get the moldboards on that plow where they would scour.  I also remember working over that cultivator, and painting it.  It wound up getting painted Ford Blue, which at that time seemed okay to me.   Grandpa was the one who then took me to the field and taught me to work with both of these pieces of equipment.

As dealers were prone to do during that time, they had repainted the Jubilee with a red hood, and decaled it as a Ford 641 Workmaster before Dad bought it.  That's how it stayed until 1987.

When Dad had his farm sale in 1976, he kept the Ford Jubilee and a few attachments.  It got some use after that, but mostly just sat in the old barn, slowly deteriorating.  That changed in 1987 when I decided it needed to be brought back to life.  I discovered it had a broken valve lifter which had taken a chunk out of one of the camshaft lobes.  So, I did a minor engine overhaul, then cleaned it up good, and painted it back to what would have been the original colors.

I guess, in retrospect, this 1953 Ford Golden Jubilee would have to be considered my "First Tractor".

Attached photos:  Old black and white of me driving the Jubilee with my Dad and sisters sitting on the 3-pt carrier.  Taken here at the farm where I now live once again.  That was most likely taken around 1962.  Second photo of the tractor in its 641 paint scheme before I tore into it.  Third photo taken after I finished sprucing it up.  And last photo of the Ford, Dad, and me taken when I took it back to him in 1987.

Cheers,

JB

Hmmm....   It seemed to ignore the fact that I clicked on Attachments...    Let's try that again.

Lovely family photo's and great story to document John,  I bet your dad was excited and pleased to see the end results of your restoration of his old tractor.

Pleased it's not just us "Brits" who have difficulty with the website posting of photo's some days.

Here is a photo of a "Proper crawler" I restored this one after the Fordson Half track in the late 1970's, it was this sweet running Caterpillar 22 engine (compared to the English Fordson) which got me hooked on the fine engineering of US built tractors.


Malcolm.

1976 I bought my first tractor built in Racine, this single front wheel Case SC an original import tractor into UK and still in it's original working condition. This tractor not only started like a dream but ran as sweet as anything. It's seen here pulling one of our four wheel bale trailers, I enjoyed many happy hours on this tractor before it was sold when the Massey collection started to grow, it is still part of a Lincolnshire collection.

Malcolm.

Interesting. I didn't know Case exported tractors to the UK. How many were sent over there?