A winning combination
The J I Case company was founded in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1863 and is recognised as manufacturing more threshing machines and steam engines than any other company in history.
Cross-motor
By the beginning of the 20th century, however, machinery making was coming of age, and at the heart of all this was an entirely new form of motive power the ‘Lightweight’ agricultural tractor. Admittedly, a little crude and notoriously underpowered, they emerged when labour was still cheap. These smaller units eventually gained a good foothold. Without even realising it, the agricultural industry had reached a significant milestone on the road to achieving full farm mechanisation; and the search for that elusive ‘winning combination’ began.
One offering from Case was called the 10-20 cross-motor, launched in 1915. The 10-20 had a novel design three-wheeled chassis powered by a conventional four-cylinder in-line, water-cooled, gas engine. This power unit was mounted across, rather than along, its mainframe and only one of the rear wheels was live on this particular tractor and this was aligned with the front steering wheel.
The cross-motor design was quite a rare concept, but this machine sold well enough, and Case shifted
