Where's All The Fordsons?

[Anonymous-0]

A long time ago I asked what the best-selling tractor of all time was, and it's the Fordson. I just looked in a ref. book I have and it looks like 757,265 were built between 1917 and 1930. That's quite a few. However, I've only seen maybe 3 or 4 at shows and consignment auctions. I'm in N. Illinois, was the Fordson a wheatland tractor or what? Did they all get scrapped for the war effort in the 40's? Where's all the Fordsons?

 

[Ryan - WI]

if you look closely you will notice Fordson in your car, in your bed frame and in your fence posts. Most of them have been scrapped.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Bunches of em went to the bottom of the Pacific.Later Hoss

 

[L.C.Gray]

I've always wanted one and asked a similar question before. There's quite a few of them still out there but they don't seem to travel much. I was told by some guys who have them that they don't often haul them to shows because they are so cantankerous that they have no idea if they'll run to even unload much less re-load once they're at the show. Evidently they are a tinkerer's dream to own.

 

[Anonymous-0]

They were one of the best tractors available way back when. At least one of the most afordable. No one knew just how the world of collecting would turn out though. The Forsons got old and ended up being parked in a fence row when more modern tractors came along. Then WW II got here and anything scrap got melted down into Sherman tanks, LST's, B-17's and M-1's. Not many Fordsons survived. The same sort of story will play out in 20 or 30 years after all the scrap that's going to China now ends up creating another lost generation of history.

 

[Mattias]

Thew Fordsons must also be one of the more exported ones.

 

[keh]

Daddy had a Fordson when I was a small boy. By the 1940's they were SERIOUSLY out dated and most were scrapped.

KEH

 

[6U684]

Grandfather had two of them on his so.MN farm when he sold out in 1920. A senior JD engineer said that Henry would sell a Fordson for $500 and you couldn't get a Waterloo Boy for less than $1200. The design had big ball bearings in the rear axle and when the balls broke, it broke the whole rear casting.

 

[JK-NY]

The Fordson was an aFORDable tractor, and one of the better ones in its day , designed for the average farmer at that time. By 1940's there were alot better tractors to be had, the Fordson was already obsolete by then ,(much like its Ford car cousin, the Model T) and as mentioned , many were scrapped. Remember that by WW2 most people were looking for tractors on rubber tires.

 

[El Toro]

My late dad had one before I was born and he said it was hard to start not sure which year they bought it. In 1926 still before I was born he bought a new 10-20 McCormick-Deering and he said this was like getting a Cadillac and in the mid 1940's I was big enough to drive it. Sure was a good tractor. Hal
PS: Not sure what ever happened to the Fordson.
It may have been pushed into woods.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Sure, sure, I understand that they became obosolete, but I've seen A LOT more tractors from that era that weren't Fordsons. You'd think out off all the '17 to '30 era tractors still around, the majority would be Fordsons. I dunno. Maybe I just secretly want one and I'm upset that they aren't very available.

 

[Ron in Nebr]

Here's a shot of my grandad sweeping hay on a Fordson that was reversed for a sweep, circa mid-30's.

 

[Ron in Nebr]

Forgot to mention that we still have a set of rear fenders, a couple gas tanks, and other misc. Fordson parts scattered around the ranch. No idea what happened to any of the tractors themselves.

Still have an old horsedrawn hay sweep parked under a big cottonwood tree on our west meadow. Grandad said that's where they were haying when they got their first Fordson sweep tractors, so they just left it there.

 

[Tom43]

They weren't called FORDSOBS for nothing! They were little better than horses. The Farmall F-20 made them instantly obsolete.

 

[Richard G.]

Don"t compare the old Fordson with the Model T. I took my 17 Model T for a spin Thursday and my passenger was a former Ford design engineer with 40 years with Ford.
Richard

 

[tiresntracks]

If you're talking about the old F's and N's, there's quite a few around here, but I don't think I've seen a running one. Most of them are yard art. I've heard that they're really hard to start, but I've heard the same thing about E1A Diesel Majors and its not true for them. A lot of farmers bought new tractors and kept their old one for a spare, but if they really were hard to start, they wouldn't be much good for a back up, if they wouldn't start when you needed them, so I bet a lot of them did get scrapped.

 

[Mike (WA)]

They were notoriously hard to start, and that, coupled with the fact that most early farmers weren't very good mechanics, led most of them to the scrap drives in the '40's. By that time, the farmers had tractors they could use, and were anxious for the scrap man to put the Fordson on the truck first, so it wouldn't be left behind.