TRACTOR TALK
MASSEY-FERGUSON 97 & MINNEAPOLIS-MOLINE 706
Badge engineering is nothing new. Tractor companies did it as far back as the first decade of the 20th century. It happened a lot, sometimes with one company wanting to add tractors to its line of ag products and other times it was a particular type or size of tractor that was needed. You contract with another company for one of its tractor models, most often dolled up in some way to reflect your own company—and voila, you added a tractor or tractors to your lineup. The actual manufacturer gets to keep its plant cranking out more equipment and generally everyone is happy. When Massy-harris merged with Harry Ferguson, Inc. in 1953 to become Massy-harris-ferguson, it looked to be a happy time for both companies. They decided to maintain two separate identities by adopting the so-called “Two-line Policy,” perhaps with some technology exchanges, but brand loyalists in both camps began fighting at both the customer/dealer level and within the company. Continued economic strain on the ag manufacturing industry in general and the vicious internal turf war eventually led to the company downsizing and consolidating into one identity, Massey-ferguson.
One of the more surprising and disappointing aspects of the consolidation, especially if you were a Masseyharris fan, was the entire Massey-harris tractor line being quickly phased out. Ferguson had been a master of the small tractor, but Massey-harris had some wellrespected large tractors that could have formed a foundation for upgrades beyond what had already been done. The Ferguson line produced some larger new models, but they weren’t quite up to the old Masseyharris 55 and 555 units in power or stature and M-F found itself without a beefy prairie tractor for the wheat belt. This problem was solvable in the short term via badge engineering.
For 1958, Massey-ferguson debuted the Model 95. This unit came from Minneapolis-moline and was a dolled-up, repainted version of the GBD or G-VI models, featuring a big 425 cubic-inch, 80 PTO horsepower 6-cylinder engine. This held the line as the M-F big boy until it was replaced by the Model 97 for 1962. The Model 97 featured an enlarged version of the long-running 425 that displaced 504 cubic inches via a 3/8-inch bore increase. Making a Nebraska-certified 101 PTO horsepower, the model 97 was based on the updated M-M G705 and G706, the 705 being a reardrive tractor and the 706 having a driving front axle.
The Model 97 version was very much like a Moline but mounted a Massey-ferguson nose and grille and came in red and gray versus the Moline yellow and brown. They used either diesel or Lpg-fueled versions of the 504 engine. Unlike Moline, M-F didn’t give the two- and four-wheel-drive tractors separate model designations. The Moline/massey four-wheel-drive tractors used Elwood front axles through 1962, which were adapted war-surplus GMC 6x6 front axles. For 1963, they switched to Coleman axles, which were built from scratch in Aurora, Colorado.
The 504 diesel was based on a 425 cubic-inch gasoline six Moline had debuted back in the 1930s.