Ferguson tractor
| Ferguson TE20 | |
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1955 Ferguson TEF
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| Type | Agricultural tractor |
| Manufacturer | Ferguson Company |
| Production | 1946–1956 |
The Ferguson TE20 is an agricultural tractor designed by Harry Ferguson. By far his most successful design, it was manufactured from 1946 until 1956, and was commonly known as the Little Grey Fergie. It is light-weight but effective, and a popular collector's item for enthusiasts today.
The model name came from Tractor, England 20 horsepower (not the true power delivered but from a formula based on engine size).
The TE range of Ferguson tractors was introduced in England in 1946, following 30 years of continuous development of 'The Ferguson System' from 1916. The first work was to design a plough and linkage to integrate the tractor with its work in a manner that was an engineering whole. The automatic control system is now employed by almost all tractor manufacturers worldwide. A British patent was applied for by Harry Ferguson in 1925 and granted the following year.
By the early 1930s the linkage design was finalised and is now adopted as international standard category I. Just one prototype Ferguson System tractor, known as the Ferguson Black, was built to further technical development and for demonstrating to potential manufacturers. During 1936 the first production Ferguson tractors were built in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, by the David Brown Company. This tractor, the Ferguson Model 'A', incorporated Harry Ferguson's 'suction side' hydraulic control system, the key to solving sensitive automatic control of three point mounted implements and patented on 5 February 1936 (patent no 470069). The combination of Ferguson's converging three point hitch, patented on 3 July 1928 (patent no 320084) with his 'suction side control' valve is the key to the success of all subsequent Ferguson and later Massey Ferguson 'Ferguson System' tractors, the most important of which are the TE and TO 20 models. (It was the production of the Model 'A' that led in 1939 to the David Brown line of tractors).
In order to get volume production with lower costs, following a demonstration of his tractor before Henry Ford Senior in October 1938, Ferguson made a gentlemen's agreement or also referred to as the handshake agreement with Ford to produce the Ferguson tractor in Detroit starting in mid-1939. About 300,000 of these tractors, known as 'Ford Fergusons', were produced up to 30 June 1947.
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Wikipedia