NEWS RELEASE
www.masseyferguson.com
For Immediate Release
18 May 2008
CONTACT:
Paul Lay
Manager, Public Relations & Communications
Tel: +44 (0)2476 851209
Email: paullay@uk.agcocorp.com
Images available at: http://www.pagesbureau.co.uk/AGCO_Press/MF/MF_home.html
Massey Ferguson’s 50th Anniversary
Tractor Developments Before the Triple-Triangle
The Massey Ferguson brand name and Triple -Triangle emblem first appeared 50 years
ago in 1958 after Massey-Harris of Canada bought Harry Ferguson’s tractor company,
but the earliest origins of Massey Ferguson date back more than 160 years.
Power farming with steam engines or tractors was still a distant dream in 1847 when a
Canadian farmer named Daniel Massey began making and repairing machines for local
farms. The farming industry still relied on horses and oxen plus a huge labour force, and
this remained the position ten years later when another Canadian pioneer, Alanson
Harris, began making horse-drawn implements. The Massey and Harris companies
grew rapidly and eventually joined forces in 1891 to form Massey-Harris, Canada’s
biggest farm machinery manufacturer.
By the 1890s steam engines were becoming a familiar sight on big farms, but their size
and weight restricted their use mainly to transport work and driving threshing machines.
Massey-Harris continued to build horse-drawn equipment, still easily the biggest sector
of the machinery market, but the Massey family moved into steam engine production as
a separate business under the Sawyer-Massey name. The quality and reliability of their
engines made Sawyer-Massey Canada’s biggest manufacturer.
Massey Ferguson is a worldwide brand of AGCO Corporation
www.agcocorp.com
The first tractors arrived on American farms in 1889. Numbers were tiny at first and, like
steam engines, they were used initially for haulage and threshing. Sales rose steadily
as smaller, more versatile models arrived and dozens of companies moved into the
tractor market during the early 1900s. Massey-Harris did not follow their example,
which was probably the right decision. The early tractors had a poor reputation for
reliability, the engines were often difficult to start and lack of parts and service backup
was a problem for customers and manufacturers alike. A 1920 survey of Canadian
farmers who owned a tractor found that 80% considered them a poor investment.
As tractor reliability improved Massey-Harris decided to enter the market, starting
cautiously with agreements to distribute established American designed tractors in
Canada. Then, in 1927 Massey-Harris bought the rights to the Wallis tractor and its
factory in America. It was a good choice because the Wallis was sturdy and reliable and
featured a distinctive U-frame design. The U-frame was a curved thick steel plate
forming an immensely strong, rigid structure enclosing the underside of the engine and
transmission.
Within five years of the Wallis purchase, Massey-Harris had progressed from not being
a tractor manufacturer to become one of the top five companies in the world.
The first tractor designed and built by Massey-Harris was called the General Purpose,
announced in 1930. It was simply years ahead of its time being the first production
tractor from any major manufacturer to include four-wheel drive, using big diameter
wheels front and rear, and an unusually comprehensive list of options included road
lights, an electric start kit, a PTO and even a set of fenders to cover the top half of each
wheel for orchard work.
Sales of the General Purpose and a later model known as the Four-Wheel Drive were
disappointing. Farmers were not familiar with the benefits of 4WD and, at a time when
farming profits were low, customers were unwilling to pay for the more complicated and
expensive drive system. It was more than ten years before another tractor with fourwheel drive through equal diameter wheels arrived on the market.
In 1938 the company was first to introduce the concept of power boost with its ‘Twin
Power’ feature as part of an update of Massey-Harris Pacemaker and Challenger
models. This was operated by a switch giving the choice of high and low power settings.
In the low power mode the engine speed was limited to 1,200rpm to deliver the rated
37hp. The high setting, recommended only for stationary work with the belt pulley, made
1,400 rpm available to boost the output to 42hp.
The top selling model in the ambitious new Massey-Harris range launched in 1946 was
the MH 44, which was also available as the British built MH 744PD from 1948. The
British version was among the first wheeled tractors powered by the new generation of
easy starting, high-speed diesel engines. Massey-Harris tested a number of engines
before selecting the 46hp Perkins P6.
The decision to stop building the 744PD tractor was taken after Massey-Harris and the
Ferguson companies joined forces in 1953. The deal – one of the biggest and most
important the tractor industry has known – was announced as a merger, but the reality
was a takeover by Massey-Harris. Harry Ferguson had decided to sell his immensely
successful tractor business and the buyer he chose was Massey-Harris, a company for
which he had great respect. Bringing Massey-Harris and Ferguson together produced
the world’s biggest tractor company with the biggest selling tractor range.
Ferguson was a self-taught engineering genius. He was born in 1884 in what is now
Northern Ireland where he lived on the family farm, but at the age of 17 he left home to
work in Belfast repairing bicycles and cars. He quickly showed an extraordinary aptitude
for anything mechanical and his hobbies included tuning and racing motor-cycles and
cars. He also designed and built several aircraft and in 1909 became the first person in
Ireland to make a powered flight.
His interest in tractors started during the 1914-18 war. By this time he was running his
own garage and with tractor sales increasing because of pressures to produce more
food, he became an agent for an American built tractor. Renowned for of his skill as a
demonstrator, Ferguson was asked by the Irish Board of Agriculture to visit farmers
throughout Ireland to show them how to use their tractors more efficiently. This
experience during 1917 convinced Ferguson that using a chain to hitch an implement to
the drawbar and drag it through the soil was not making the best use of the tractor’s
potential.
The answer, he decided, must be a new way to link the tractor and its implement, and
he and a small team of engineers spent much of the next 15 years or so developing his
ideas. The result was a linkage with three hitch points that attached the implement to
the rear of the tractor, using hydraulic power to do the lifting and lowering. The unique
and most innovative feature of the linkage was that it used the resistance of the soil
against the plough or cultivator to press the driving wheels more firmly against the soil
surface, boosting wheel grip and pulling power.
Ferguson built a special tractor to demonstrate the benefits of his new attachment
system. It was painted black and was called the Black Tractor and, because of its
importance, it is on show in the Science Museum in London. It was the first tractor
designed and built with Ferguson’s hydraulically operated three-point linkage, which is
still known as the Ferguson System. It ranks as one of the most important and
innovative developments in the history of power farming and it still forms the basis for
implement attachment and control on virtually every farm tractor.
Building the Black Tractor was a first step towards bringing the Ferguson System on to
the market. Harry Ferguson had two main objectives – he wanted a financial return on
the time spent developing the attachment system, but he also believed his invention
could improve farming efficiency throughout the world and he kept prices low to enable
as many farmers as possible to benefit from his equipment.
Ferguson System tractor production started in Britain in 1936 under a partnership that
became the pattern for the future. Ferguson retained total control over engineering,
design and marketing, while his partner was responsible for manufacturing the tractors.
His first partnership in the UK was with David Brown Tractors to build the Ferguson
Model A.
In 1938 this was replaced by a new partnership that produced the Ford 9N or ‘Ford
Tractor – Ferguson System’ model in the United States, and the third and last
agreement was back in England in 1946 when production of the new TE series tractors
started at the Standard Motor Company’s Banner Lane factory in Coventry.
The TE-20 was one of the most popular and successful tractors ever built, and to meet
the demand in the United States and Canada, Ferguson opened a factory near Detroit
to produce an American version known as the TO series.
The production figures are a measure of the extraordinary success of Harry Ferguson’s
tractors. In more than a century of tractor history only three tractors have achieved
production figures of more than 100,000 per year, and two of them were designed by
Ferguson. The first of the big-selling tractors was the original Fordson launched in 1917,
the second was Ferguson’s American built 9N and the third was the Ferguson TE/TO
series. More than 516,000 TE-20 tractors were built at Banner Lane before production
ended in 1956.
ENDS
About AGCO
Founded in 1990, AGCO Corporation (NYSE: AG) (www.agcocorp.com) is a global
manufacturer of agricultural equipment and related replacement parts. AGCO offers a
full product line including tractors, combines, hay tools, sprayers, forage, tillage
equipment and implements, which are distributed through more than 3,000 independent
dealers and distributors in more than 140 countries worldwide. AGCO products include
the following well-known brands: AGCO®, Challenger®, Fendt®, Gleaner®, Hesston®,
Massey Ferguson®, RoGator®, Spra-Coupe®, Sunflower®, Terra-Gator®, Valtra®, and
White™ Planters. AGCO provides retail financing through AGCO Finance. The company
is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, and in 2007 had net sales of $6.8 billion.
Visit our website: www.agcocorp.com or www.masseyferguson.com