Ford Farm Toys

All of us know Henry Ford, the man who brought us the Model T, popularized the automobile for everyday use and also invented the assembly line.  Ford was an inventor and innovator never short on ideas.  After his initial success with the Model T, the first mass produced automobile, Henry longed for more challenge and he had ideas.  To help grow his ideas of building farm equipment, Henry Ford started a separate company called Henry Ford and Son Company to produce tractors under the Fordson name as not all his shareholders were accepting of the idea to build farm equipment.  Eventually Ford bought back all shares in his company and once he had control, he then merged the farm equipment company back into Ford Motor Company.

Fordson started to mass produce tractors in 1919 following the war. The first model was the Fordson F which proved to be incredibly successful with over 750,000 models sold in the U.S. in the decade of it's production. After starting production of tractors in the United States, they later shifted production to England and Ireland and imported them back to the U.S.

Known early on for their difficulty starting, Fordson tractors had to be cranked, which required an incredible amount of strength on the part of the operator. From today's standards, early Fordson tractors were very crude, from their starting sytem to their gearing system. For most of the 1920's, the largest customer for Fordson tractors was the Soviet Union were they became very popular among poor farmers.

Eventually when Ford dropped the Fordson name and replaced it with Ford, they brought out the highly popular Ford 9N in 1938 and the even more popular 8N in 1948. The Ford 8N sold over 500,000 units and were very popular on farms throughout North America. Even into the 1980's, these small tractors were still in use on many farms and used for light duty activities such as pulling a wagon or raking hay.

Fast forward many years into the 1980's when Ford expanded it's tractor business by purchasing Sperry-New Holland. This decision didn't last long and Ford sold its tractor division to Fiat i 1991. Fiat continued to use the Ford name on their tractors until 1998, when they were renamed New Holland.

Fords history in the United States as both an automobile company and a tractor company is a piece of history that should be long remembered and what better way to commerate this history that with a diecast Ford tractor.

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Diecast Ford 8N

The N Series tractors built by Ford between 1939 and 1964 were indeed a very important part of the history of tractors built in the United States.  The N Series tractors were the first U.S. built tractor to use Ferguson's 3 point hitch system, which is still in use today.  The design of the N series included collaboration between Ford and Ferguson, which was the predecessor of today's Massey-Ferguson.  Under a previous agreement, Ford was using Ferguson's 3 point hitch system but after the agreement ended, Ford continued to use the Ferguson 3 point hitch system, only they modified it slightly to avoid trouble with patents.

Ford  began production of the 8N in 1947 and soon became the best selling tractor in the United States.  Ford, which was the builder of automobiles, had the advantage of large production facilities that could easily churn out thousands of tractors quite quickly and at a low cost.  During the war, Ford had an advantage over other tractor makers and therefore got plenty of business during that time.  After the war when rebuilding began and equipment was needed, again Ford was able to provide enough tractors, fast enough and cheap enough to make them a hit.

The Ford 8N came with a 4 speed transmission, which was an improvement over earlier N series tractors and in 1952 the tractor could be purchased for $1400 U.S.  As far as power is concerned, they were fairly low powered by today's standards - around 25 h.p, but they still offered farmers many advantages.  In all, Ford built over 500,000 8N's.

As a child, my grandfather owned an 8N, back in the 1970's and 1980's and it was still running fine and we still used it around the farm to rake hay and pull wagons.  Because it was the best selling tractor in it's day, a diecast Ford 8N surely belongs in your diecast farm toy collection.

Ford Diecast Tractors

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