Deere and Wagner, the truth?

[fixerupper]

Most of us know Wagner made a few tractors for Deere during the gap between when the 8010-8020 was discontinued and the 7020 was introduced. An article I just read claimed Wagner dealers could not sell tractors under the Wagner name during this time. True or false?

 

[rrlund]

I'd read the same thing years ago. Somehow they managed to put Wagner right out of business with some exclusivity deal that lasted
for years after the 7020 came out.

 

[Merton]

I read that this deal give birth to the Big Bud Tractor.

 

[fixerupper]

The story I read was the creators of Big Bud sold Wagners and when Deere shut them off from selling Wagner they built their own tractor.

 

[GreenEnvy]

True. What happened is JD signed a deal for Wagner to provide JD up to 100 tractors. The contract stipulated JD could terminate the contract at any time no matter how many tractors Wagner built for JD and there was a no compete clause in which Wagner could not sell
tractors under their own name for 5 years. The deal only lasted a year and JD only sold around 51 units. Now the clueless anti JD crowd have always said JD forced Wagner out of business which is not entirely true.

Big Bud was started by Willie Hensler and Bud Nelson. Willie was a Wagner dealer and when he lost the Wagner franchise, him and Bud developed their own 4 wheel drive tractor to sell. I say develop loosely because their very first tractor was a Wagner painted white, and
all Big Buds up to 1978 were pretty much an exact copy of Wagner. In 1978 they came out with the Series 3 which was their own design. Another tractor that came out of the Wagner contract with JD was Rite tractors. Rite tractors were developed by Dave Curtis and Jack
Curtis and they were a Wagner dealer too. JD fans should take note of this because it was the Curtis brothers that demoed a Wagner TR9 up against an experimental 110 hp LA Case made by JD. And it was this demonstration that convinced JD to develop the 8010. This
demonstration actually took place only 60 miles from here. Anyways, the Curtis brothers made a pretty good business updating Wagners with newer components, cabs and such through the years. And then a local farmer asked them one day if they could build him a new
tractor from the ground up. So the Curtis brothers spec'ed one out and pretty soon they were in the tractor business.

 

[SVcummins]

Wagner put themselves out of business when they signed the contract