Also in my garage
A passion for Porsche extends from the latest road cars to early mud-pluggers
There’s something shapely to the bonnet of a Porsche-diesel tractor. As enthusiast and owner of several examples Tom Sanders points out, that’s because – like all proper Porsches – it’s air-cooled, so there’s no need for an upright, ‘tombstone’ radiator at the front to keep the little workhorse plodding on through an Alpine winter.
That’s just one of the cultural differences between the mud-plugging Porsches and classic British tractors such as Fordsons or Fergusons. “Ferdinand Porsche didn’t hold back with the design of his tractors, using aluminium or magnesium for many parts,” says Sanders. “Like the cars, they’re over-engineered. They had to be strong to work on high-altitude farms, and the quality is incredible. But then they did cost half as much again as the equivalent Ferguson.”
And he should know. In his early teens he restored a ‘little grey Fergie’, and with the profits from selling it bought his first Porsche-diesel, aged 17: “I simply told my dad I’d bought a Porsche, so he was fairly concerned at first!” Since then he’s acquired more, and now the 29-year old helicopter engineer from Shropshire has three in original working order and another undergoing restoration to concours standard.
Sanders is always bemused at how few people know that the Stuttgart firm even made tractors.
Ferdinand Porsche designed his first in 1937, calling it the Volkschlepper (the people’s tractor), and they were built by German and Austrian subcontractors until the parent company took construction in-house in 1956. The range included single-, twin-, triple- and four-cylinder models, with the engineering so precise that all of the cylinders were identical and only the crankcases differed. The 3.5-litre, four-cylinder Master model is the most sought-after today, and can be worth more than £50,000.
In 1963, sales hit a few fallow months and Porsche took the snap decision to abandon the tractor business and concentrate on its booming sports car sales. Factory space was needed so desperately, Sanders says, that the final few tractors were assembled in the yard outside.
Sanders’ enjoyment of his tractors makes many a classic car owner appear shiftless. He uses them in ploughing marathons (sometimes chained to another example for traction), for pulling trailers and cutting grass, and loves to be out and about on them, cruising at anything from 12 to 30mph. But that is positively racy compared to the 5mph top whack of the Burrell showman’s engine he helps maintain, and to which his little red Porsche is often a tender.
Last year, he displayed a tractor at the Porsche car marque’s 70th birthday celebration, held by dealer group Stratstone at Cholmondeley Castle, where it caused a huge stir.
“We have a good group of us who meet up with various vintage tractors,” Sanders explains. “We plan a route off the main roads, visiting local pubs and places of interest, while taking in the scenery at a sedate pace. But I’ve also commuted on the tractor once or twice. It would be fine on winter roads, too, although I’m not keen on using it then because of the salt.
“I often ask my girlfriend if she’d like to go out in my Porsche or Lamborghini, because I also have a Lamborghini tractor. They’re both twoseater roadsters, so she can’t say I’m lying!”