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In August 1987 in Denver, Colorado, Case IH dealers gathered to see their new line of row-crop tractors. What they saw there was something that escaped them in the previous Case IH dealer meetings—a brand-new tractor created by the blended company. The result was a terrific machine. That first generation Magnum line set new standards for high-horsepower tractors worldwide.The new Case IH Magnum…
In 1953, Mark Keeler became the head of the Agricultural Engineering Division for Harvester. One of the first things he did was to go on a fact-finding trip with product specialist M.O. Curvey. The two men visited several dealers to learn what they wanted to see in the next generation of International Harvester tractors. The answer from the first dealer they visited—Andy Anderson in Harvard,…
John McCaffrey grew up the son of a blacksmith in Fayetteville, Ohio. He was just a boy at the turn of the century, and his father, like many blacksmiths at the time, sold and serviced agricultural equipment, including McCormick machines. Young John’s powerful frame earned him the strenuous job of setting up binders for the farmers who bought them.
“I had a strong back and a weak mind,”…
The key to creating the machine that would become the Magnum was proper assembly of the parts that the company already had in place. Harvester had a good engine, but Cummins and Case had started a joint venture in 1980, the Consolidated Diesel Company (CDC), to build clean-burning diesel engines for Case machinery and to sell as OEM units. The CDC engines were high-quality units that came on…
The 50 series represented more than just high-tech engineering. The tractor model introduced styling that was more angular and dramatic than anything on the market at the time. Styling was nothing new to tractor design. The importance of industrial design had been understood since the 1930s, when most of the tractor industry leaned on prominent designers to give their line a look or boost.This…
One of the most interesting programs to develop over the past few years is the Delo Tractor Restoration Competion. Founded in 1995, the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition was established to allow high school students the chance to restore a tractor and compete for district, state, and national honors, with the grand prize winner taking home as much as $10,000 in cash as well. The students have…
What is it about farms that make kids so dang excited? Whether it's the big, powerful machines, all the animals, or the huge tracts of nature to explore, farming is something kids of all ages care about. If you know kids who love learning all there is to know about farming, they're sure to enjoy our series of Casey & Friends books, which use easy language to explain the ins and outs of a…
In order to understand the 660--and the infamous recall that related to it and the 560--you need to roll the clock back to 1950. International Harvester was still the number one tractor manufacturer in the world, by a comfortable margin. Their Letter Series tractors had set the world on fire. Once the company was able to get their hands on enough steel to ramp up production—something that was a…
Although Harvester was plagued off and on with significant drive train failures, particularly as it applied more power to existing designs, when the company set out to create a new lineup of agricultural prime movers for the 1980s, failure was not an option. In development for more than half a decade, this new series was a formidable member of Harvester’s Meaningful Competitive Advantage program…
Jimmy Ray Jones was the founding father of the Scout racing program. Born in 1939, an electrician by trade, he lived in the San Diego area and was an avid off-roader. Jones began racing in local Southern California events in the 1960s and, according to a late ‘70s bio, he “raced ‘em all… minitrucks, sedans, bugs and modified four-wheel drives.” In ’69, he bought a Scout 800A V8 as a family…