Tractor heritage, news and features

All time high

Most of my jobs these days come from my website, this invention has sent a lot of work my way during 2009, this 1967 Ford 4000 I’ve had in is a prime example. Stephen Cowell contacted me early on in 2009 about this tractor; he had seen examples of my work while on the web searching for tractor restorers and decided that his tractor would benefit from a decent make over.

The plan was to do it sometime between November 2009 and April 2010. When the winter started to set in Stephen contacted me to confirm that the restoration would be fitted into the time frame that we had discussed 10 months previously, however the transport he had arranged for the Ford had fallen through so he asked me if I knew of anyone. I did, our friend Howard Link does regular trips out to Holland to sell machinery and luckily he used the port of Dover which was within a few minutes of Stephen’s place, Howard was making that journey within the next two weeks, the plans held together and the Ford was soon delivered to my workshop.

Popularity

I am always keen to start any job I take in, but none more so than this, I’ve wanted to do a 1000 range Ford for a while now, as at the moment their popularity on the classic tractor scene is at an all time high. I saw a lovely example at Tractor World held at Malvern in March last year; I knew I had Stephen’s to do so I took a few pictures to help me out. After some research from a book Allan T Condie produced over a decade ago I was happy with the targets I needed to strive for.

The 1000 range was launched at Smithfield Show in 1964 along with the 100 range Masseys - my neighbour Ken remembers the event fondly as he had not long been married to his wife Nancy - surprisingly this was the only time in his 60 years of farming he would visit this elite agricultural show. The 2000 was sub named the Dexta, 3000 the Super Dexta, 4000 the Major and the 5000 the Super Major, I presume this was done so farmers could distinguish where there old model fell in relation to the new ones; this was dropped in late 1967 when they were just badged 2000, 3000 and so on. I dated this one from the serial number on the gearbox casting at April 1967.   

 

If you want to read more get the March issue of Tractor magazine...