Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Most Popular Model Of Tractor

Not here...at all. John Deere tractors of that era outsold 06 and 56 series tractors by a large margin. The 3020 and 4020 may have been the best tractors, for their era, ever made-and I'm not a Deere guy. Going back to the two-cylinder Deeres, around here and most other places I've been, the M's, etc. seemed to really outsell equivalent John Deere's. It seems like a lot of two bangers get restored but a lot of the old M's are just still running. I'd even say Ford's outsold Deere's. The 10 and 20 series really made John Deere. Possibly even Allis outsold the two-bangers. The 30 and 40 series John Deere's were popular too, but especially after the 40's came out, IH made big inroads due to the huge price increase on the Deere's. Lots of John Deere boys in these parts, went to the 1086 after the 4430 which IIRC was about $14000, went to something like $26000 when they came out with the 4440.

Ford sold 400 8N's a day for 5 straight years.

Everyone around here still has a 906, 1066, or 1466 IH. They mostly pull balers or stack hay but they’re still going. We’ve got a 1971 model 906 that sits all year until it’s time to load and stack hay, give her a jump and she’ll bust right off hot or cold. Leaks every fluid it’s supposed to hold but still runs like a top and does what you ask of her.

When I was a kid and everything was still plowed there were lots of 835, 855, and 875 Versatiles and lots of Steigers around. A couple years later and a bunch of guys had bought big 4wd Case IHs. Most of the Versatile tractors and a couple of the Case IHs are still around but there’s less more guys going to notill every year and they don’t need the big 4wds they always used for plowing.

In Grandad’s day everyone wanted an M Farmall but there were plenty of others around too. Some popping Johnnys and myriad Olivers, Case plow types, and other miscellaneous. Never heard of anyone running a Minneapolis Moline but that’s about the only one.

Olivers were made in Charles City Iowa and gave the John Deere's a real run for their money up until about 1970. Unfortunately, White bought out Oliver and it appears their management drove the company into the ground. I have an Oliver 1850 diesel and 2 Farmall Super M's in the barn right now. My father in law had 3 Olivers and no John Deere's on his farm.

Just about any 40 series tractor is still used and sought after in this part of the world. Heck of a rebuildable platform and lots of features. Saw a 4240 with close to 10k hours go for over 20 just a few days ago at an auction....

See a lot of Kubotas for small utility duty here too

Ten new green tractors to every other tractor that shows up in the field for the big acre farmers around this part of the world. They have always had good equipment along with great dealer support. I also wonder if they run their own finance division, really push leases these days. To be honest, I don't know how you pay for the cost of these machines today farming. I'm not talking about your 30-40 HP tractor like I have or a lot of us have to play with around with.

Deer or Kubota

I don't know how guys do it either.


It's hard enough to make money without a machinery payment.


Figure a new 150hp loader tractor is $150k, new 300-500hp articulated around $300-500k.


Ain't happening around here!

When I was in Afghanastan everything looked like Massey Fergusons. The same red and silver color scheme as well. I could not read the name on the side of the tractor. It's my understanding they come from India.

kwg

We had a 4020 and a 3020 when I lived at home. Very modern tractors for their time. My dad also ran a mechanics shop beside the house. Worked mostly on farm equipment and wore out trucks. The draw back to the John Deeres of that time was the Series- Parallel relaying for the starter. It seried two 12 volt batteries for 24 volt for the starter and than paralleled the batteries for charging and lights. Lots of them got jury rigged when people didn't understand how they worked. The open spool hydraulics was different from everyone else also. My uncle always said that green paint was pretty, but expensive. He bleed John Deere green.

In our area, the 4020 was the greatest tractor that ever crawled a cotton field, and may still be so considered by many. I'd have to say the 4430 made a bug impression when it hit the market, but I'm not sure its reputation would match the 4020. I've been pretty distant from the farm machinery world since the middle 70s, so I'm sure much took place I know nothing about.

I'll never forget the first time I climbed up into the cab of a 4430, strapped in, turned on the air conditioning, and turned on the radio. Damned thing was a nicer ride than my car at the time.

Almost all of the big tractors around here are John Deere. Gotta be 90% at least.

Here in Nebraska it has to be the 4020.. You can go along way before you find a farm that doesn't still have one working...including me...lots of 4430s and 40 still working too,,,
I would bet the farm all M was a front runner here till the new generation deeres came out in what like 63... They really took over the market..
The die hard red guys are still around and they almost all had 1066s...the cabs were so bad on those there were a lot of guys went to JD and never turned back...
Our farm was all allis till dad bought his first 4020. We been johndeere ever since...our old we'd 45 is still on the farm in the shed...

Yes Oliver had a tremendous reputation for reliability and pulling power...my dad rented one from my uncle and still to this day raves about how good it would pull a 5 bottom plow....
There is a great video on you tube about the takeover of Oliver by white....they were a great profitable company that got blindsided and took over...to steal profits by white....sad story really...
They had and engineer who developed a cvt type transition that was all gears and really couldn't feel it shift...the story is really worth a look...

Why the 4020? Well John Deere never really had much of an origonal thought themselves but were more in tune with the farmers....like really they were the last of the bunch to come out with 6 cy tractor...they recognized farms getting bigger and a man needed more comfort to spend more houtprs in the seat....also bullet proof reliability...jd and farmall were neck and neck at first..but not sure which model farmall....maybe the 560. But they used the m rear end and it didn't hold up to the extra power...JD pulled ahead and farmall never caught up...they always were a step behind...they never had a decent cab till the 86 series...by then JD was leaps ahead into the 40 series with the nicest hydrolic seat and hugely suscfull 466 engine....
I have nothing against the IH tractors they are very reliable and powerful...just never as nice to run...we still have the old 766 dad bought in the 70 s with 100 hrs on it...who knows how many it has now...it was the main planting tractor for years not to mention the cultivater and shredder sprayer.....it still runs the auger and does about 40 k bu corn and we have it on a shredder all summer...still the best starting tractor on the place...

I think one reason why John Deere became so popular was not just because of the tractors, but they pretty much made every other kind of equipment a famer needed. Their corn planters have always been among the best on the market. I still have an old JD horse drawn planter that my grandfather used, sitting in a shed. But, a lot of it had to do with the dealerships. Around here, the JD dealerships were always the best, as far as service and parts went.

I grew up in a time period when tobacco was the main cash crop on the farms, and many farmers still used mules to cultivate the crop with. Farms were much more diversified, pretty much equally divided between crops and animals. The farm I grew up on, 152 acres, had hogs, a small herd of dairy cattle, beef cattle, tobacco, corn, and hay. One tractor, and a team of mules was all it took to run it. Along about the mid-60's, farmers began to get into corn and soybean farming in a bigger way, and by the mid-70's the diversified farms were pretty much a thing of the past. All grain farming meant you needed more land to work, and more land meant bigger equipment, so that's when the big tractors really took over.

Prior to the 1960 era, if a farmer had an M Farmall, he had a big tractor. We had a neighbor who had a WD-45 Allis, and I was envious, because his tractor was bigger than ours. Anyway, that period of time is long gone, and I'm glad that tractors are much more operator friendly and useful. But, I still like seeing those older machines in the field. Glad to see that many of you are still running those classics.

LOL...

John Deer 720 or 730
We had an 830.

On wet pavement?? Why???

I'd like to see them out in heavy clay soil, each pulling a nice big eight bottom plow to find out which would outwork the other. That would mean something.