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During the research for Snoopy and the Spy author Lee Klancher spoke at length with Bud Youle, a marketing executive with International Harvester. In this part he tells the inside story of how they decided to finally reveal the 2+2 to the world. It was a powerful machine, with updated capabilities that no other tractor on the market at the time had, and it was poised to take the farming…
During the research for Snoopy and the Spy (order here) author and Octane Press founder Lee Klancher spoke at length with Bud Youle, an executive who was one of International Harvester's secret weapons in their war with John Deere for control of the American tractor market. His stories were fantastic, so we're presenting some of these lost stories here. In this interview transcript Bud Youle (Yes…
Before McCormick Harvesting Machine Company was merged with International Harvester Company in 1902, the McCormick family name was already infamous among the men and women of the labor movement in 1880s Chicago. The anarchist Chicago publication The Alarm described Cyrus McCormick Jr. as "the very picture of human depravity and viciousness, only common to people who have exhausted their vitality…
William Powers moved from Illinois to Iowa in 1875. Central Iowa had recently been opened up to settlement, and Powers came to farm. He farmed with horse and plow, transforming the prairie into fallow fields. He passed away in 1903, and the torch was passed to his son, Samuel.
Samuel worked those same fields, determined to provide farms for each of his four sons and his daughter a farm to…
The following is an excerpt from the new book Red 4WD Tractors. It tells the story of one of the most innovative tractor prototypes ever designed by the Steiger. For another multi-engine Steiger experimental prototype, check out the story of the Twin Panther PT650.
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Steiger innovation was born the moment Douglass and Maurice fired up a cutting torch and built themselves Steiger #1. That…
During the research for Red 4WD Tractors, author Lee Klancher discovered one of the funniest stories of corporate espionage to ever rock the tractor world, and since it couldn't fit into the book we're sharing it here.In the early 80s, John Deere was working hard on its answer to International Harvester's 2+2 tractor, which was the leading tractor in its niche. Deere's engineers had been…
On an 11,000 mile, 65-day motorcycle journey down the length of the South American continent, you would expect to encounter major obstacles like impassable mountains, axle-sucking mud, and bone-chilling temperatures. What you probably wouldn't factor in are interactions with the local population. The following is an excerpt from Colin Evans and Alfonse Palaima's new book, Journey to the End of…
On the banks of the Pedernales River, only a few miles from the home in which Lyndon B. Johnson was raised, the late Charles Klein built his dream garage near Stonewall, Texas (pop. 469) in the mid-1960s. Klein’s dreams were not of diamond-plated wall coverings and recessed lighting. Klein simply wanted a dry place to work on his bulldozer when it rained.
Klein was a partner in a small business…
Secrecy was of the utmost importance in the competitive tractor market of the 1970s and 1980s. This competition--particularly between Deere and Harvester--is covered in the new book, Snoopy and the Spy (October 2024, Octane Press). In the early 1970s, Steiger made a deal so massive that it assured the company's place in the history of tractors, when they agreed to build the 4366 four-wheel-…
One of the most exciting things about doing research for a new book like Red 4WD Tractors is that, during all the digging, some fascinating artifacts always show up. A great example is this radio spot that highlights the advantages of the 656, found in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Note how different the tractor ads from this era sounded, with such a strong focus on informing…