John Deere Tractor

Deere & Company, the firm founded by John Deere, began to expand its range of equipment to include the tractor business in 1876. The Deere company briefly experimented with building its own tractor models, the most successful of which was the Dain All-Wheel-Drive.

The Dain All-Wheel Drive was the first tractor produced by John Deere. In 1911, Deere purchased the Dain Manufacturing Company of Ottumwa, Iowa. The next year, Deere decided to design its own tractor, and Dain founder Joseph Dain Sr., was directed to design that tractor. After several prototypes, the design was finalized in 1917, and 100 production units were ordered. By 1919 when that production run was complete, Deere had purchased the Waterloo Boy company. Although the Dain AWD was ahead of its time, with features such as a shift-on-the-fly transmission, Deere halted production in late 1919, partly because the cost of the Dain tractor was double that of the Waterloo Boy, and partly because of the death of Dain Sr.

The predecessor of Waterloo Boy came about in 1892. It was made by thresherman John Froelich. It is called the Froelich tractor. Scale Models of Dyersville, Iowa made a 1/16 scale toy of this tractor. In March 1918 Deere & Company decided to continue its foray into the tractor business by purchasing the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company which manufactured the popular Waterloo Boy tractor at its facilities in Waterloo, Iowa.

Deere & Company continued to sell tractors under the Waterloo Boy name until 1923.

Despite a rather severe farm economy depression at the time, Deere management decided to build a Model D prototype in 1923, designed by Muir L. Frey (father of Ford Mustang designer Donald N. Frey). The Deere Model D was produced from March 1, 1923 to July 3, 1953, the longest production span of all the two-cylinder John Deere tractors. Over 160,000 were made.

The first Model D rode on steel wheels with a 6.5 in × 7 in (170 mm × 180 mm) (later 6.75 in × 7 in (171 mm × 178 mm)) two-cylinder hand-cranked engine rated 15–27 hp (11–20 kW). It was not, however, the first tractor to bear the Deere name - as a number of Deere experimental tractors, and the John Deere Dain "All Wheel Drive" tractor (of which approximately 100 were produced during 1918 and 1919) had all carried the Deere name before the D.

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Wikipedia