Tractor Family Tree

[Glowplug]

Could someone please briefly explain the evolution and relationships in regards to Case, New Holland, Ford, International Harvester, and Farmall? I say "brief" because I have a very short attention span.

 

[bill177]

Many years ago in a land far far away a number of families inter-married and produced offspring. Later some of the offspring married back into the original family or divorced and remarried into the original name or those of other close families. Some of the offspring even had hypenated names.

After a time, family bloodlines began to blur and fail. Some even vanished completely. Then outsiders appeared and took the old names and even created new names for their families.

So complicated has the liniage become, that is is often easier to simply call them red, blue, green, or orange.

Now, that was easy wan't it?

Here is a place you can go for real information:
Antique Tractors - Yesterday's Tractors : Antique Tractor Headquarters

 

[JoeinTX]

The Tenneco company owned Case in the early 80s when it then also acquired International Harvester....no need to continue two seperate ag lines, thus the birth of Case International as the two were merged into one working entity. Fiat Agri purchased the Ford ag line in the early 90s and adopted the "New Holland" label going forward for all lines....no more Ford or Fiat. In the late 1990s, New Holland and CIH merged and began developing common platforms for tractors and some other equipment while retaining their established brands as semi-seperate marketing/sales divisions. As a result of this merger several parts of each company had to be sold in order to comply with U.S. and European anti-trust laws lest they be seen as controlling too much of the ag equipment industry. Among these, one was the Doncaster U.K. plant which built CIH tractors that was sold off to the ARGO group..... the owners of the Landini tractor/Laverda harvester lines. As part of the sale, the "McCormick" naming rights were obtained and these former CIH tractors are now marketed under this brand.

The "Farmall" name was resurrected to put on a new line of compact tractors on CaseIH side.

Family tree? Interbred as all get out.....

 

[charlesw]

Here is a place you can go for real information:
Antique Tractors - Yesterday's Tractors : Antique Tractor Headquarters

Your link doens't like me or my browser. Here's one that does:
http://www.tractordata.com/graphs/history.jpg

Sure, it's not ytmag. But, well, whatever!

 

[bill177]

&*^&%$!! computers. The link I gave works from my favorites - but not if hand entered or copied - go figure.

Now for one better, if you get an error page - hit the GO button again beside the URL window and it will work. ^&**@^#$!!

 

[Glowplug]

Wow!! I knew there were some relationships but I didn't realize there were so many mergers and so much inbreeding! Does help explain a lot of the confusing manufacturer nomenclature though. I guess Kubota and John Deere are outsiders crashing the family reunion! Although I heard somewhere that Deere and Komatsu have some sort of relationship. Makes ya wonder if Kubota and Deere are actually Japanese cousins!!

 

[dgl24087]

The Tenneco company owned Case in the early 80s when it then also acquired International Harvester....no need to continue two seperate ag lines, thus the birth of Case International as the two were merged into one working entity. Fiat Agri purchased the Ford ag line in the early 90s and adopted the "New Holland" label going forward for all lines....no more Ford or Fiat. In the late 1990s, New Holland and CIH merged and began developing common platforms for tractors and some other equipment while retaining their established brands as semi-seperate marketing/sales divisions. As a result of this merger several parts of each company had to be sold in order to comply with U.S. and European anti-trust laws lest they be seen as controlling too much of the ag equipment industry. Among these, one was the Doncaster U.K. plant which built CIH tractors that was sold off to the ARGO group..... the owners of the Landini tractor/Laverda harvester lines. As part of the sale, the "McCormick" naming rights were obtained and these former CIH tractors are now marketed under this brand.

The "Farmall" name was resurrected to put on a new line of compact tractors on CaseIH side.

Family tree? Interbred as all get out.....

It gets even more complicated. Don't forget that Case acquired David Brown some years before buying/merging with IH. Case-IH had acquired Steiger as well. Also, Ford acquired New Holland and Versatile prior to selling to Fiat. Now Versatile is owned by Buhler, and Fiat had to sell the Hesston hay and forage division, which was bought by AGCO.

 

[D7E]

The Tenneco company owned Case in the early 80s when it then also acquired International Harvester....no need to continue two seperate ag lines, thus the birth of Case International as the two were merged into one working entity. Fiat Agri purchased the Ford ag line in the early 90s and adopted the "New Holland" label going forward for all lines....no more Ford or Fiat. In the late 1990s, New Holland and CIH merged and began developing common platforms for tractors and some other equipment while retaining their established brands as semi-seperate marketing/sales divisions. As a result of this merger several parts of each company had to be sold in order to comply with U.S. and European anti-trust laws lest they be seen as controlling too much of the ag equipment industry. Among these, one was the Doncaster U.K. plant which built CIH tractors that was sold off to the ARGO group..... the owners of the Landini tractor/Laverda harvester lines. As part of the sale, the "McCormick" naming rights were obtained and these former CIH tractors are now marketed under this brand.

The "Farmall" name was resurrected to put on a new line of compact tractors on CaseIH side.

Family tree? Interbred as all get out.....

Ford also had their name on Versatile and steiger tractors in the 80's and 90's
and i see new holland have their name on kobelco excavators and Ag Chem rogator sprayer , only 754 i think ( baby model ). And Buhler have the old genesis tractor , have they altered the old genesis or just red paint?

 

[jbrumberg]

To All:

I think if we really follow the various lineages through somebody is his/her own grandfather/grandmother !

 

[JoeinTX]

Oh.........and we can go much further just for the fun of it.

-A further result of the CaseIH/New Holland merger is the change to their individual construction units. The Fiat-Allis name was dropped in N.A. and all Fiat-Allis equipment was repainted in New Holland yellow. Fiat-Allis road graders now wear the Case name. Kobelco is in the mix as well.

-The Allis Chalmers company was bought by Deutz-Fahr in the mid-80s who then proceded to trash the AC tractor line on the spot and replace it with their own. After several years of lackluster performance, an investment group got together and bought the old Allis company back but in the process were able to acquire Deutz's operations in South America. To this day, though owned by AGCO, you will see Deutz-green and inspired tractors for sale in S.A. branded as AGCO-Allis.

-The SAME group, who provided a large number of tractors to the fledgling AGCO throughout the 90s, was able to acquire the very same Deutz around 10 years ago and has now commonized a good number of their products.

-The Cat Lexion combine is a rebadged Claas machine. Claas was a major competitor in the purchase of Valmet/Sisu, which, was eventually bought by AGCO. AGCO had purchased the Cat Challenger line and factory from Cat just previous to this for a song and I strongly suspect there was some Cat money used by AGCO to buy up Valtra Valmet and secure the Sisu engine line. Cat had also purchased Perkins as it began it's run to consolidate it's place as a premier global engine superpower. Claas had earlier purchased Renault's tractor line, competing against AGCO for one, knowing that Renault and AGCO were co-operating the GIMA transmission program.
So, we have Cat buying from and competing against a competitor at the same time. This competitor, while cooperating on drivelines and selling combines to Cat, is bidding against their biggest customers in AGCO/Cat for other tractor and engine lines.


...and round and round we go. Anyone who has read this probably dizzy by now so I'll stop

 

[roxynoodle]

Case/IH/New Holland will be dropping the DX series compacts because the New Holland name is selling better. There may be some potential for new tractor buyers to get a better deal on a DX soon.

 

[whitetiger]

Ford also had their name on Versatile and steiger tractors in the 80's and 90's
and i see new holland have their name on kobelco excavators and Ag Chem rogator sprayer , only 754 i think ( baby model ). And Buhler have the old genesis tractor , have they altered the old genesis or just red paint?

Only change was from NH blue to Versatile red and name on the hood.

 

[N80]

John Deere has a poster (saw it in a JD dealer's office) that shows all the in breeding. Of course it shows JD as a continuous unbroken line and does not show any of the Japanese makers.

 

[swines]

John Deere has a poster (saw it in a JD dealer's office) that shows all the in breeding. Of course it shows JD as a continuous unbroken line and does not show any of the Japanese makers.

Why should it? The tractors are / were subcontracted, and not produced by a subsidiary or wholly owned entity. If you showed that, you also have to show the subcontractors to: Ford / NH, and IH as they also have Japanese companies producing products.

 

[dsgsr]

Wow!! I knew there were some relationships but I didn't realize there were so many mergers and so much inbreeding! Does help explain a lot of the confusing manufacturer nomenclature though. I guess Kubota and John Deere are outsiders crashing the family reunion! Although I heard somewhere that Deere and Komatsu have some sort of relationship. Makes ya wonder if Kubota and Deere are actually Japanese cousins!!

Hitachi has been building Deere Excavators for yrs. I wish JD would give the Compact Tractor line back to Yanmar, those were quality compacts.


David

 

[jwnge]

While I was working for Case, they and John Deere both bid on the Steiger tractor, Case won, but could this mean there could be some John Deere blood in the Case line of Steiger?

 

[N80]

Why should it?

I didn't say it should I just said it didn't.

But, from a consumer's standpoint I'd rather know who is actually making the stuff than who owns the company on paper or what color they paint the tractor.

 

[Glowplug]

I didn't say it should I just said it didn't.

But, from a consumer's standpoint I'd rather know who is actually making the stuff than who owns the company on paper or what color they paint the tractor.

Amen. I've seen the poster you're referring to. I am almost positive it is a John Deere marketing poster. It shows the tangled web of inbreeding amongst the tractor companies with a straight line for John Deere. . .colored green. I guess it is supposed to say that John Deere has been around longer than the others, is stable, and has not had any change in the executive ownership.