MASS-PRODUCED MARVEL!

The Fordson Model F is a momentous machine in many respects. For a start, it was the first tractor to be mass-produced, and then sold at an affordable price to farmers around the world. But, perhaps more fundamentally, it triggered an agricultural revolution. The Model F, and the huge numbers in which it was made, was instrumental in the introduction of a new era in farming – the mechanised age.

Henry Ford had a long-held ambition to ease the lot of the over-worked farm labourer. His success with the Model T – which brought the reality of owning a motor car to the masses – allowed him to experiment with successive, Model T-based vehicles, in a bid to create a machine that could be used on the land, for agricultural purposes. He wanted to see combustion engine-powered machines replace horses on farms and, eventually, that’s exactly what happened.

“Henry Ford had a long-held ambition to ease the lot of the overworked farm labourer”

Core business

However, with the core of Ford’s business then being the production of road cars and light commercials, Henry was encouraged to set-up a subsidiary operation to further