You are a tease. :hissyfit:
Just be glad Paul doesn't do a strip-tease on TBN! :laughing:
Most of my shop time is just fabrication of other types of machinery such as ship parts, automotive ...... It's mostly replicate an old existing part or rebuild and although it pays well its boring
When I look at anything I always seem to see the things that were left out and wonder what it would be like with those things added.
Yep, boring generally pays the bills while interesting doesn't. Life isn't fair.
As I like to say from my time in the engineering racket, "No design is ever complete" and "All design is a compromise."
At the corporate level things get complicated. Every product is a compromise and may good ideas never make it to market for many reasons including cost. Every part that leaves the factory has a huge overhead to support every aspect of the corporation. I expect Kubota has talented people on staff.
These very nice and well executed mods are in general a better fit for the after market.
But as you suggested there maybe a market for brand new mod'ed/tweaked tractors much like Carol Shelby did with the early mustangs. New tractors for people with deep pockets.
Oh yeah, there is huge overhead for any part, product, or accessory. Besides the part, there is the design and engineering time, support staff (e.g. bean counters, lawyers, marketing, etc), tooling that has to be designed and engineered, part and tooling cataloging, packaging that has to be designed, instructions to be written up, printing, warehousing, production scheduling, shipping, dealer bureaucracy, etc.
I agree that Paul's mods would be great after market products; but I still think the market would be a limited. I think most tractor owners that don't belong to a tractor forum just work their rigs, and put them away. For some of us, modifying a tractor is probably the closest thing to being a gear-head building a hot-rod as we'll ever get; I know that's how it is for me. For the rest of us who belong to tractor forums; we take a keen interest in the machinery and its use.
New Holland did a retro Boomer to be reminiscent of a Ford 8N; but I have no idea if they still make it, and how many are actually being used versus sitting in collectors barns.