In my work as a “rural heritage journalist” (a term which is rather “bigging up” my work, as really all I do is go around chatting and listening to interesting people), I come across a lot of old tractors. Some of these old tractors are extremely unusual and very valuable, but it isn’t necessarily the case that these “wow factor” tractors will make the best stories. Often it is the more ordinary old tractors that make the best stories, and this month’s story features an old tractor that some might rightly say is quite commonplace here in the U.K., namely a Ferguson.
The little grey Ferguson tractors were made in the hundreds of thousands, and at one time pretty much every other farmer would have owned one. There are more of these tractors on the vintage circuit than any other type of tractor … so what makes this particular Fergie worth writing about, and what makes it, to me at least, more interesting than some rarity that is worth perhaps £10,000 more?
Well, you see, so many of the extremely rare and expensive tractors have no back story. They have very often been bought at auction by a collector who knows nothing of the tractor’s past, and who has very often only driven the tractor
