FERGUSON TRACTOR
NO HEAVIER THAN A HORSE AND PLOUGH —BUT IT COULD DO SO MUCH MORE
IF A ‘CLASSIC’ TRACTOR EXISTS, THE FERGIE’S IT
A part of our landscape
They were once everywhere — here on the farm; towing the mowers around sports grounds, parks, and schools; towing the boat to the ramp; or maybe just quietly rusting under a tree or falling-down shed somewhere. Even so, in 2019, there’s still a fair few of them around doing odd jobs on lifestyle blocks, or, like the examples in this story, just parked up and well kept.
There’s children books, music, and videos about them; they have featured on a New Zealand stamp and even on our five-dollar note; museums have examples on display; there’s a craft brewery with one in the foyer; and, of course, that black-singletand-gumboot-wearing Fred Dagg used one for almost everything. In the mid-’70s energy crisis, whatever needed power, Fred was just going to “Run it off the back of the Fergie”.
Sir Edmund Hillary fitted some with extra wheels, by adding one more to the outside of each of the existing wheels, then fitted caterpillar tracks and became the first person to drive to the South Pole.
If there could be such a thing as a ‘classic’ tractor, then the Fergie is as classic as you can get.
Irish and clever
The founder of the Ferguson company was also a classic in his own right. Harry Ferguson was born in County Down, Ireland and, as the son of a farmer, spent a good deal of time walking behind the horse-drawn plough. This was to stand him in good stead down the track. But, before the plough would play a more significant role in his life, he would first work as a bicycle and car mechanic, race motorcycles and cars; and design, build, and fly Ireland’s first aeroplane — indeed, at the same time, become the first Irish person to fly a plane. He would also become the owner of a vehicle dealership
that sold cars and tractors, and, from there, the more familiar Ferguson story would begin to emerge.
Couplings and separations
At that stage, tractors towed ploughs and other farm implements in the same way that the horse had pulled them or as a car tows a trailer. Ferguson thought that if the implement could be hard-fixed to the towing vehicle, it would be a much better arrangement. He designed his first solid coupling and experimented with this attached to a Model T to pull a plough across a paddock.
The system at this stage was not hydraulic, but Ferguson and his design colleagues designed an arrangement that was selfregulating for furrow depth and had a fail-safe system that would stop the tractor flipping over backwards if the plough snagged. He even took this design to the US. Press clippings show him demonstrating this system on a Fordson tractor in the US as early as 1922. By 1926, he owned patents on the three-point hydraulic-linkage system that attaches implements to a tractor. This system is still widely used today.
Initially, he sold his ploughs to be attached to Ferguson-brown tractors, but, following a series of business deals, tractors of his design were manufactured by Ford in the US and sold worldwide as Ford-fergusons. This deal with Ford first worked, then didn’t work, and then finally fell apart during a long- running and acrimonious lawsuit, which ended with Ford having to pay Ferguson more than US$9M in compensation.
Growing alone
Post World War II, Ferguson convinced the British Government to grant him UK£1M under the Agricultural Act of 1947, and he struck an agreement to use the by-nowunder-employed Standard Motor Company plant in Coventry, England to build his own tractors. The outcome of this was the production of the first Ferguson-only branded tractors. Standard had a petrol motor that suited Ferguson’s needs ideally, and production began. In the first year, 350 of the tractors were manufactured, but, eventually, production ramped up until over 500,000 of them had been produced.
The tractors were known universally as ‘Ferguson TE20S’. Initially, in New Zealand, they were known as the ‘Ferguson 18/19’ then the ‘23/24’. With a model change that incorporated a change from 6V to 12V for the electrical system, plus locating the air-input system on the dash, they became known here, and in parts of Australia, as the ‘Ferguson 28’.
Merged
Records show that 17,130 were eventually imported into New Zealand. In the mid 1950s, Ferguson merged his company with the Canadian manufacturer Massey Harris to become Massey Harris Ferguson. By then, the little grey Fergie had been through a number of iterations. The model numbers were prefixed with the letters TE or TO — simply standing for ‘Tractor England’ or ‘Tractor overseas’, respectively. Minor changes to horsepower output, ancillary controls, and suchlike were made, but, essentially, the final Ferguson looked very like the first. From that point on, this little tractor began to work its way into our local folklore.
Harry Ferguson was firmly of the opinion that a tractor and plough should weigh no more than a horse and plough. This thinking may have eventually stymied future growth of the tractor as far as Ferguson himself saw it, but it has left us with the classic that is the Ferguson tractor.
A grand collection
This is where John Walsh enters our story. Car collectors around the country own and build special buildings to store their cars, but this is the first time that we have come across such a serious collector of tractors and farm machinery. John, a Waikato farmer and tractor enthusiast, has a purpose-built building on his farm that houses most of his collection. There’s a library for all the manuals and display cases for those interesting knick-knacks. Rows of old tractors shine (or otherwise), and most of those are Fergusons of some description. Those that aren’t have a very strong link to the Ferguson brand anyway.
John knows each piece of machinery
This is where John Walsh enters our story. Car collectors around the country own and build special buildings to store their cars, but this is the first time that we have come across such a serious collector of tractors and farm machinery
intimately, and a walk around his extensive collection with him elicits many interesting titbits of information about individual tractors, or sometimes reminds him about yet another Ferguson-related story. This could be a familiar tale of new and second-hand prices — just like cars from those years, second-hand tractors would sell for more than the new ones — or it could be that he points to a piece of machinery and explains that it is the first Ferguson plough to come to New Zealand, or that it is the only tractor of that model in the Southern Hemisphere or similar. His Ferguson collection is probably the biggest in New Zealand and probably also one of the biggest in the world.
Another chapter
The Harry Ferguson story didn’t end with his tractors becoming Massey Harris Ferguson though. He was always an engineer, and he went on with his company Ferguson Developments to create the fourwheel-drive system that became so much a part of the Land Rover heritage. He then also created the full-time four-wheeldrive system that was used in the Jensen Interceptor FF. That gave him another role in the creation of two more major British motoring classics.
However, his list of achievements did not finish there. He also designed and created a prototype four-wheel-drive family saloon. This had anti-lock brakes and automatic transmission. Although this car never made it to production, it was almost 15 years ahead of Audi and other manufacturers in this technology.
By now, Ferguson was older, although still an active design engineer, and he still had one more ace to play. Under his direction, Ferguson Developments designed the only ever race-winning four-wheel-drive system for a Formula 1 (F1) car. Stirling Moss drove this car, the Ferguson P99, to victory at the Oulton Park Gold Cup F1 race in 1961. This was also the last time that a frontengined car won an F1 race.
Sadly, Harry Ferguson suffered from depression during his life and died, probably by his own hand, in 1960. However, he’s known as the farm boy who rode to the top of the British industrial pile and, along the way, had a hand in the creation of a number of classics. His little tractor probably played a disproportionately large role in the development of our own agriculture industry.
As you rightly said in your excellently persuasive article in the December edition [Issue No. 336], the Rover P6s were never in the cheap category, all being good-quality engineered cars, the same applying to other Rover models before them. When new, considering the prices asked for cars like my P4 110 (the last of the series), the same amount could buy a good-quality house.
Rover’s main customers in the 1950s/’60s being specialist doctors lawyers and judges and police officers. Today, these Rover P4s, P5s, and P6s represent comparatively modest good value, even in pristine condition. Many good examples for sale — one I saw recently in New Zealand Classic Car, a P4 110 in immaculate original condition for a modest $11K! Bargain!
Spares for most of these cars are available in Britain — some for my Rover being remanufactured tyres made by Avon Tyre Company; also quarter windows and re-enamelled radiator badges and radiators themselves; and even an original Rover P4 engine block rebuilt from other original parts still useable. They are absolute bargains and with the right calibre of owners they will continue to promote the rich Rover heritage for many years to come.
Always looking forward to the next edition of New Zealand Classic Car.
Regards, Ken