Classic Oliver Tractors is a fact filled enjoyable read! I can’t say enough good things about the pictures and history it contains. You aren’t really a farmer if you don’t have a favorite brand. You are an astounding farmer if the brand you love doesn’t have a badge anymore. So many high quality tractor and implement companies fell victim to corporate raiders during the bust years. Farming has a lot of bust years. Trump will go down in history as the president who presided over the most farming bust years in history, even more than The Great Depression and Dust Bowl years, and these are all his fault.
ISBN: 978-1-937747-99-2
Written by Sherry Schaefer.
Steel Wheels to Consumption by White
I grew up with Minneapolis-Moline and Oliver tractors, but I didn’t know any of the history. This covers it all, from the horse drawn plows that launched Oliver internationally to the underhanded corporate raising by White. I tilled a lot using a 1955 Oliver with one of those infamous “Year Round Cabs.” No air conditioning, just a fan. You had to open the windows and let all of the dirt in.
We had two of those and one of the 1650 models.
No, those aren’t my actual tractors. Somewhere I know we have photos of them though.
Classic Oliver Tractors Disses White
I understand. The guys behind the White takeover were sleazy and slimy. Not as bad as those running John Deere, mind you, but bad. They were true corporate raiders who just wanted to sell off vital organs for profit, not build high quality products.
Having said that, we still use our 2-135 as an auger tractor. Our 2-155 does all our spraying and a good deal of hauling in.
In its early years, white built cheap durable tractors.
White 2-195
To this day my most favorite tractor ever made is the White 2-195 with front assist.
That’s not ours. I didn’t want to take the time to drive over to my brother’s place and take a picture of it. Despite all of the electrical gremlins it has due to its age, this was just a good design. It’s quiet in that cab. You don’t need a trucker noise cancelling headset to take a phone call. The seat just hugs you. I can run that for 14 hours and not even be tired.
Two hours in that John-junk-the-day-it-was-made-Deere my brother makes me operate and it feels like at least two, if not four vertebra have been removed from my spine. Not to mention, I’m deaf.
John Deere has the worst cab design in the history of man. That 195 was built in the early 1980s and has a way better cab. The 8320 is at least two decades newer and has a cab that cares nothing about the farmer.
You will notice we don’t have any later model White tractors . . . yeah, they suck. Never let MBAs have any input on tractor design or component sourcing.
The real sadness here is if White re-introduced the 2-195, just switching out the 6+3 transmission for an electric shift with a toggle, not a rotating dial, it would be a best selling tractor. Other than being forced to add DEF to the engine, make no other changes. Keep the heavy glass, comfortable seat, and quiet cab. Then sell it at a bare bones price. In 1992 a White 2-195 was $66,000. Should be able to sell a new version with electric transmission for $120K and still make money. Tractors in that horsepower range from other badges are north of $200K and you are one mouse away from major repairs.
