It’s all too easy to forget the considerable age of tractors like the Ferguson FE 35 when you see fully-operational and beautifully-restored examples like Dave Woolerton’s machine featured here. The uninitiated could be forgiven for failing to appreciate how long ago models like this one were built. This FE 35 dates from a time when Anthony Eden was at the helm in Downing Street, the AEC Routemaster double-decker bus had just been introduced, Premium Bonds were launched and Bill Haley and his Comets were storming the UK charts with Rock Around the Clock. The year was 1956 and, for Ferguson, it was an important one..
Glittering arrival
The FE 35 was launched to the press at a glittering, London reception, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in October 1956. Later the same month, the public got to see the exciting new model at the British Ploughing Championships which, that year, were held at Shillingford, in Oxfordshire. Ferguson had positioned four of the new models prominently along the main roads leading to Shillingford, giving visitors a sneak preview of the new tractor as they journeyed towards the event.
Based very much on the Massey-Harris-Ferguson TO30 and 35 models that were developed and produced for the American market from the TO20 model, the Banner Lane-produced FE 35 relied on engines built by the Standard Motor Company, at the Canley Road factory in Coventry. The first FE 35 (Serial No. SDM 1001) was actually put together at Banner Lane on August 22nd, 1956, and that machine is now preserved for posterity at Massey Ferguson’s museum in Beauvais, in France.
Five more were built on that same day, but production didn’t really get into full swing until November of that year. The earliest models featured a plain
