Tractor heritage, news and features

Rust – what rust?

Steve’s Case was once orange or Flambeau Red to use the correct Case name, but most traces of paint have long since gone on this gorgeously rusty barn find. It was supplied new by Sohmans of Olney to the executors of Major H J Randall at The Hyde, Olney, Bucks, and was registered GPP 9. By the 1960s it was with Smith Brothers of Beeston Leasoes Farm, Northill, Beds, where it was spotted carting grain for drilling by a young Ford service engineer, who eventually managed to buy it, moving it to Sandon, Herts, where it was used for grass cutting with a trailed mower.

In the early 1970s it passed to D Bygrave of The Knoll, Ashwell, who used the tractor briefly before parking it in a corrugated iron shed where it then sat for over 30 years without moving, with the shed eventually collapsing on top of it!

Steve bought the D in 2006, unburying it and taking it home in 2009 as a future project. He decided to see if it would run, so he changed the engine oil and cleaned the points and it burst back into life. It is missing its wings and, rather inconveniently, its seat, and the steering wheel has seen better days, but other than that it is all there – what a marvellous find.