"… The Engine Sounds A Bit Agricultural"

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

1946 Ford 9N Tractor, full gallery here

I’m sure that it’s a cliche to say that as a writer I try to avoid cliches. While gearshifts often do fall readily to hand, it’s not a good idea to put that in every review. Not long ago another writer (and I wish I could remember who it was to give him credit) was describing a car’s engine that wasn’t exactly the smoothest running machine and he mocked a common automotive cliche with the phrase “insert agricultural implement metaphor here”. When you read “it runs like a tractor”, they aren’t exactly praising an engine’s durability or torque, they’re calling it primitive and uncouth. Since I like to see things first hand, when I saw that there was going to be a tractor show this fall in Ira Twp, Michigan about an hour away, I decided to see, hear and feel for myself just how roughly tractor engines run. I’m glad that I did because what started out as a lark ended up teaching me something about automotive history and also American culture.

1936 McCormick Deering Farmall F20. Full gallery here.

Every September, Izzi Farms hosts an antique tractor and equipment show put on by a group that may have the longest name of any special interest club in America, H.P.A.T.E.E.M, the Historic Preservation of Antique Tractors and Equipment of Eastern Michigan. When I got there I saw a variety of vintage Case, John Deere, McCormick/IH and Ford tractors lined up on the grass near an empty farm field.

Most of them, it seems, were from the 1940s and 1950s. Some were as well restored as any car show trailer queen, like a pink 1946 Case being used to raise money for breast cancer research, while others still looked like they still being used, driven over from a nearby farm in between plowing duties.


To watch video in 2D click on the settings icon: Options, No Glasses, and Left Only or Right Only

In addition to the vintage tractors there were also a number of “equipment” collectors showing off their prized possessions, mostly stationary gasoline engines that were used on farms and in factories as gasoline started replacing steam power. Stationary gasoline engines, usually of the “hit and miss” type, were used to power everything from saws to hullers to even washing machines. We enthusiasts like to joke about cars that are appliances or wishing our own cars were “as reliable as a Maytag”, but most of us don’t know that Maytag made their own gasoline engines to power washing machines and other appliances where there was no electrical service.


To watch video in 2D click on the settings icon: Options, No Glasses, and Left Only or Right Only

Stationary engines had an important role in the development of the automobile for a couple of reasons. John D. Rockefeller’s first fortune was made refining petroleum into kerosene used for lighting. When people like Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and Steinmetz made the commercial production and sale of electricity possible, creating a competitor to Rockefeller’s kerosene, Rockefeller started looking at a byproduct of the refining process, a combination of napthas, that he had hitherto been discarding as waste. Some used it as a dry cleaning solvent. It was toxic, nearly explosive and over 170 years after it was first refined, they still haven’t come up with a better fuel for internal combustion engines. We know it, of course, as gasoline. At the time, the stationary engines used on farms and in factories ran on steam. Rockefeller encouraged the adoption of gasoline as a fuel by subsidizing the cost of gasoline powered stationary engines.

John Deere Model M. Full gallery here.

He may have subsidized them, but Rockefeller didn’t make engines. That was up to people who built and sold gasoline powered engines for stationary use. Being located in Detroit, in the heart of the Great Lakes, before they started building cars David Buick’s stationary engines and those built by Leland & Falconer and Horace & John Dodge found a ready market in that region’s marine industry.

By the 1890s, inventors had been tinkering with internal combustion engines for more than two decades. In 1870, Siegfried Marcus was the first person recorded to have powered a four wheel vehicle with a gasoline fired internal combustion engine. In the early 1890s, the “hit and miss” gasoline engine was introduced (though many can run on kerosene once started). Their name come from the induction system which is controlled by a reverse governor connected to the engines’ large flywheels, which keep things spinning in between power strokes, which only happen when flywheel speed drops. The intake valve is passive, it is opened by vacuum. The exhaust valve, however, is operated by a linkage, which normally holds the valve open and there is no combustion. When speed drops, the exhaust valve is closed, creating vacuum on the down stroke, opening the intake valve and the fuel air mixture is drawn into the cylinder. The ignition is triggered and the mixture burns, causing the power stroke. There is typically one power stroke about every 10 to twelve revolutions. The engines rev so slowly that you can hear every firing stroke.

Automotive pioneers like Buick quickly realized that passive valves, irregular power strokes and low RPM were not suitable for motor cars, but stationary engines were a necessary step to get to high powered, high revving gasoline motors. They served a purpose and stayed into production into the 1930s, when rural electrification programs made them obsolete.


To watch video in 2D click on the settings icon: Options, No Glasses, and Left Only or Right Only

Besides hosting the old engines and vintage tractors, the organizers also put on an old-fashioned tractor pull. Not with fire-belching 1,200 horsepower behemoths like you’d see in a stadium, but rather the way tractor pulls used to be done, with local farmers competing with the same machines they likely used to plow their fields. Axle weights were loaded on a sledge chained to a stake in the ground. Competitors were timed on how long it took them to pull everything taught. It might not have been 80,000 people screaming in a stadium, but folks had smiles on their faces. While some of the tractors were indeed trailered to the show, not all of the restored farm implements were trailer queens. Owners of many of the beautifully restored machines lined up to take their part in the pull.

John Deere GP (General Purpose). Full gallery here.

The next time someone says that a car engine “runs like a tractor motor”. I can assure you that the roughest running automotive engine made in the last half century runs smoother than any of the tractors at this show.

1948 John Deere BW “Wide Front”. Full Gallery here.

1940 John Deere Model H. Full gallery here.

John Deere 820. It has a 7.7 liter two-cylinder diesel engine that needs a small four cylinder gasoline engine to start it. Full gallery here.

McCormick Deering W4. Full gallery here.

International Harvester Farmall 706. Full gallery here.

1947 Ford 2N. Full gallery here.

1946 Ford 9N. Full gallery here.

International McCormick Farmall Model BN. Full gallery here.

1951 International McCormick Farmall Model M. Full gallery here.

1949 International McCormick Farmall Model M. Full gallery here.

1946 International McCormick Farmall Model A. The offset layout improved visibility when working with smaller or delicate crops. They used the brand name of “Culti-Vision” for the feature. Full gallery here.

1952 Case VAC painted pink to raise money for breast cancer research. What color do you think they’d use to raise money for prostate cancer? Full gallery here.

1949 Case VAC. Full gallery here.

1946 Case VAI. Full gallery here.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS








Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

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  • Danio3834 Danio3834 on Jan 06, 2014

    I remember when I was young, the hangar where the King Air my dad piloted was stored used a Ford 9N exactly like the one picutred as a tug to move planes about. I remember him letting me steer as we drove it accross the tarmac moving planes about. Good memories. I remember being sad when one day it was replaced by a Clark tug with far less character.

  • 3Deuce27 3Deuce27 on Jan 09, 2014

    The new Site, could also encompass unusual vehicles like the 62' 'Unimog-404S' we just picked up for The Farm. Occasionally, we get a pretty good snow storm here at The Farm and no one can get out. Cars driven down into The Farm, are sometimes here for a month or more if caught down here when it snows heavy. Pushing snow up a steep hill is just about nearly impossible. The Unimog, is to get people up to the plowed county road and home to their families and job, though, their car might be here for a month or more...col! One time we had about ten or more people and some five or six vehicles abandoned here. Of the cars that stayed, most were FWD and Subies with chains. Even a big Ford 4x4 and a Scout chained up, couldn't get out. We pulled people to the top of the hill and county road(a 2-1/2 mile trip) with the big Kubota tractor, chained up, pulling a farm trailer. Once to the county road, friends and family picked them up and took them home. With the Unimog we can drive them into town and the bus or train station. Were expecting snow to night, if it gets too deep for my Chevy 4x4, I will have an excuse to stay on past Sunday as the Unimog just went in to town today for new tires and a brake job and is not due back til next week. Plenty of Food? Check. Plenty of Whiskey? Check, Plenty of Wine? Check. Plenty of good vibes? Check. Now if some more pretty gals show up... let it snow, let it snow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unimog

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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