The first book to cover the full story of one of the most successful international tractor makers today.

In 1964 Ford replaced its separate British and American tractor lines with the new 6X range, a "worldwide" family of tractors designed for manufacture in Basildon, Antwerp and the USA. It marked the beginning of an exciting new period in the history of Ford tractors. The next 30 years saw a host of new models and features as the line expanded and evolved towards the machines of the late 1990s with their computer-age technology. It was also a time during which Ford's agricultural business grew into an organization of global proportions, taking over both the New Holland and Versatile equipment companies. In 1994, Fiat acquired Ford's agricultural machinery interests and merged them with Fiatagri to form a new company under the New Holland name. In the late 1990s, New Holland is the leading manufacturer in Europe and many of the World's markets. In this book, the companion to the first part, the author gives an account of all the main Ford and New Holland models as well as the company changes and the personalities involved. It provides a comprehensive resource on this period of tractor history.

The Complete Book of Classic Ford Tractors presents the evolution of the popular machines from 1917 to 1996. Model histories are accompanied by detailed specification charts and, of course, gorgeous photography of restored models.

Get the whole story behind the most popular farm implement sytem of all time, beginning with Henry Ford's and Harry Ferguson's shared dream of making the farmer's job less strenuous and more efficient. Modern color photos of restored equipment, archival photography, and period advertisements show the plows, cultivators, planters, middlebusters, mowers, rakes, rotary hoes weeders, dozers, scoops, loaders and other implements that revolutionized the agricultural industry. Covered in detail are Ferguson's creation of the ingenius three-point attachment system; the Sherman brothers, pivotal figures who brought Ferguson together with Ford's deep pockets; and the infamous handshake agreement that made Ferguson implements standard equipment on Ford tractors.

"Mr. Dahlstrom...has written a superb history of the tractor and this long-forgotten period of capitalism in U.S. agriculture. We now know the whole story of when farming, business and the free-market economy diverged, divided and conquered." —Wall Street Journal Discover the untold story of the “tractor wars,” the twenty-year period that introduced power farming—the most fundamental change in world agriculture in hundreds of years. Before John Deere, Ford, and International Harvester became icons of American business, they were competitors in a forgotten battle for the farm. From 1908-1928, against the backdrop of a world war and economic depression, these brands were engaged in a race to introduce the tractor and revolutionize farming. By the turn of the twentieth century, four million people had left rural America and moved to cities, leaving the nation’s farms shorthanded for the work of plowing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, and threshing. That’s why the introduction of the tractor is an innovation story as essential as man’s landing on the moon or the advent of the internet—after all, with the tractor, a shrinking farm population could still feed a growing world. But getting the tractor from the boardroom to the drafting table, then from factory and the farm, was a technological and competitive battle that until now, has never been fully told. A researcher, historian, and writer, Neil Dahlstrom has spent decades in the corporate archives at John Deere. In Tractor Wars, Dahlstrom offers an insider’s view of a story that entwines a myriad of brands and characters, stakes and plots: the Reverend Daniel Hartsough, a pastor turned tractor designer; Alexander Legge, the eventual president of International Harvester, a former cowboy who took on Henry Ford; William Butterworth and the oft-at-odds leadership team at John Deere that partnered with the enigmatic Ford but planned for his ultimate failure. With all the bitterness and drama of the race between Ford, Dodge, and General Motors, Tractor Wars is the untold story of industry stalwarts and disruptors, inventors, and administrators racing to invent modern agriculture—a power farming revolution that would usher in a whole new world.