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1555 Question I have been meaning to ask some Oliver fellows

J

JD Seller

Well-known Member
Did the Oliver 1555 only have the two speed hydraul??? I have looked at two different ones in the last few months and they both just had the push/pull knob not the outside three position lever. They both had 1555 on the serial number plate too.
 
Yes,HP only,no Over/Under. I don't know what the reason was. If it was because they had a spur gear transmission and not a helical gear or what? My 1550 has O/U decals on it though. Lyle sent me the wrong ones for it,so I put them on. Takes a real Oliver guy to see what's wrong with that. LOL
 
Take this for what it is worth but somebody I know who should be in the know said having Hydra-Power saved White/Oliver the better part of 500 dollars to give the 1555 the selling price it went for. The 1555 was not a high profit per unit tractor for White as it was. The decision could have been made without any fuss to have eliminated the 1555 and have the Fiat's exclusively in that size (1265-1365). There was also internal management dissent on the 1655 and 2-70 as well. The 1980's happened and the Iseki 2-75 came along which did nothing for sales hence reviving the 1655 into White's American series tractor. Had the decision needed to be made on building the 1655 after JD stopped the 3020 and IH with the 656 it is possible the 70 HP White would have been sourced outside the US and probably a Fiat.
 
I was told the 1550 was brought out to offer a lower priced alternative to the 1650. It used the same main case but a spur gear transmission. It was never a big seller because it wasn't priced that much lower for less power and older transmission design.
 
Demand was trending towards 90 plus PTO HP by 1964 which made tractors such as JD 4020 and IH 806 big sellers. There is only so much you can shave off a tractor of a certain physical size. The 1550 was never going to price for thousands less than a 1650. The manufacturers were shrewd nonetheless as they knew a few hundred dollars might make or break a deal. I remember one of the IH guys here telling about how IH lost money on every 656 that IH built but feared that buyer if rebuffed over a tractor might take all his business down the road when IH could have made money on that farmer's other needs. Today we understand the economics of building farm equipment but back then most farmers did not and did not care. Most of the farmers I knew growing up would go down the street over a few hundred dollars.
 
I wonder also that the reason it didn't sell was so many used tractors in that horse power range. Why would you spend extra to buy new when an 88 or 77 would be available to do basic chores
 
My guess is that features on the 770 (like the 3-point hitch) had aged too much to compete; the 1550 brought that HP size into compatibility with the rest of the lineup.
 
It really wasn't that way. There was a shortage of chore tractors in that HP range,that's why the stripped down 1555 loader special was built. They sold cheaper new than you could buy a similar sized chore tractor for,if you could find one. Not to say cheaper than a 77 or 88,but a newer styled chore tractor anyway. It was a different time. Small dairies that used tractors that size were numerous.
 
In my area it was during the time of get bigger or get out there was actually a surplus of older smaller tractors. With auctions in the late 60's and early 70's a few dealers made good money buying tractors from my area and shipping them north. But earlier we were getting tractors brought in from the south
 
Yeah, as guys were going up in HP they often kept the older tractor as it definitely had a place on the farm even though the role changed. Our 88 went from primary tractor to blower tractor and spreader tractor. Any tractor that had live PTO and live hydraulics had a place as long as it was in good condition. The mass produced Farmall H and M, JD A and B, plus the N Fords were the only ones piling up at the dealerships and auction yards. I remember the local IH dealer had an informal policy not to have more than 4 non-live PTO & hydraulics tractors in on trade at any one time. The comment was made they were a hard sell back in the 1960's and 1970's.
 
It's always been cyclical. I remember guys going to Archbold in the late 70s looking for a tractor and coming home empty handed,or with a standard LP tractor instead of a row crop gas or diesel. Guys would buy gas 4020s hoping they could swap engines or trade for a diesel when one became available.
 
I don't know the production numbers, but around here in my area there was and still are a few 1550/1555 tractors in use. We had a 1550 and the next neighbor still has a 1555
 
Ya,that was always the impression that I was under. That the 1550 replaced the 770 and standardized the look.
 
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