</font><font color="blue" class="small">( And Massey . . . what is with them? Not to mention all the other brands! )</font>
Just a few thoughts about this from my limited observations of tractor dealerships in Indiana and Kentucky and talking to some dealers:
A former Ford dealer who now only sells new LG/Longtrac and used tractors, told me that Ford wanted "super store" shops with car dealer type show rooms and that the pressure became worse when Fiat took over. The two closest NH dealerships have the glass walled showrooms.
There are Massey dealers all around me and none that I've seen have this "super store" set up, and neither does the local Agco dealer.
Several of the local Kubota dealers have the indoor showrooms as well, but not the one where I purchased mine.
The local Deere dealers tend to have huge inventories, but not the fancy indoor show rooms.
I'm not sure what this all means, but have suspected that the show room features are intended for new or non-agritural customers (i.e. compact utility tractor shoppers).
Where that leaves Massey I suppose is trying to get a piece of the CUT pie, but they are selling through dealers used to targeting big ag operations. It makes sense that Agco use the MF brand, because even non-farmers are familiar with it.
Maybe some of the dealers on this forumn know differently from my observations in the Louisville area. This may be only a local phenomenon. I don't know.
For what it's worth, I much preferred working with the smaller dealers.