If you could be a dealer for any tractor brand?

JOCCO

Well-known Member
What would it be and why??? I am thinking of back in the old days, working out of your barn. Have often thought about this. Guess it would be MM for me.
 
What would I choose,or what would choose me? LOL

If you ever read Walt Buescher's book Plow Peddler,you'll see that Allis Chalmers was out beating the bushes and would give a dealer contract to anybody who could sign their name. The nearest Oliver dealer was a guy who sold out of his toolshed. I still remember going there with Dad and having to walk over the cattle guard that kept the sheep in so they could keep the grass down around the building and equipment.

Dad and I used to buy and sell a fair amount of used stuff. I've wished from time to time that I'd have kept it up and got a dealership for something,but I really don't know what brand. Probably whatever might have been available. I'm sure for a while there White would have gladly given a contract to anybody who would have taken one.
 
I would have figured Oliver with you!! Well said about the old days of going onto a farm with live stock to get tractor parts!! Even if you did have a dealership it would be tough today as a lot of things change. I remember the old jokes. A tractor or two and an implement and you were a dealer. I remember when everybody took on short line stuff (mowers, plows etc) Not many of them around now. Also remember when logging with chainsaws was big; couple saws and a jug of oil you were a dealer for Jonsered, Dolmar, Mcculloch or whatever!!
 
What I was going to say. Kubota appears to be a growing concern, I would look at them these days. They have a very solid history of good products and good engines, people aren't scared of them.

Paul
 
I know I?m going sound biased but probably JD. It?s not that I think the 2 cylinder are world beaters it?s just that I look at the overall machinery lineup. JD wasn?t the best at everything but if you take their entire lineup and compare to the rest my opinion is they come out on top. In addition to a tractor I could sell the farmer a 14T baler, 55 combine, a LZ drill all things history has proven to be good products. IH would be a close 2nd IMO depending on what decade.

MM tractors might have been good but what about the rest of their lineup? Other then tractors you don?t see much of MM around here. I know I would get my butt kicked trying to sell a MM S combine against a JD or Massey 90. My landlord back in the day bought a MM combine. It was so troublesome they ditched it after one year for a 55. Did MM even make a twine tie square baler? What about corn planters?

My 2nd choice if we are talking just tractors would be Oliver. If I could match Oliver tractors with Gleaner combines with NH hay equipment I could probably make that work at least until White f?d up everything up.
 
Interesting topic and I would have been happy selling just about any brand back in the day. As far as preferences go I would have to say John Deere back during the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's. The closest JD dealer to us closed back in the mid-1960's and even as a kid I imagined my family taking it over and running it. The building was in town and too small for the cab equipped tractors and combines plus simply would have been too small for a 6600 or 7700 combine when they came around 1970. Therefore, it would have been necessary to go into new facilities outside of town. Probably would have had a few shortlines as well such as Badger and Glencoe. New Holland would have been nice as well and there were a couple Deere dealers that also carried New Holland. Being able to benefit from looking at it today in 2018 it may have not been wise to take on NH as a Deere dealer in the mid-1960's as the franchise would most likely have been pulled after the Ford New Holland merger during 1986 so somebody else would have benefitted from all your work building up New Holland in your territory. Being able to work with cash to get started would have made life fairly nice versus coming up by the bootstraps.
 
(quoted from post at 22:09:29 03/11/18) What I was going to say. Kubota appears to be a growing concern, I would look at them these days. They have a very solid history of good products and good engines, people aren't scared of them.

Paul

Plus about anyone with decent credit can buy a Kubota 0% financing... You have noting in it just a promice... Kubota Buyers remorse would be rare other than I wish I had got a bigger Bota...

Back in the day what thrived around here was JD the dealer would finance it if you put up some land as collateral. I don't know how the other brands financed them my grandpa was a JD man for just that reason. He did not have the money to buy a better tractor and had to resort to the EZ way for him... Sorry JD guys he had the worst luck with them luck of the draw I guess...
 
That's what happened to the local Deere dealer with New Idea. They had sold New Idea for as long as I could remember. They even sold some Uni Harvesters. Then the whole White New Idea buyout came along and they lost the contract. They replaced it with Gehl. There was a fair penetration of Gehl around here anyway,but one was by an Oliver dealer who'd gone out after the first White debacle and the other was a Case and Oliver dealer who had given up White and didn't survive the Case IH merger,so by the time White New Idea took away their contract,there was a need for a Gehl dealer anyway.
 
Kubota dealership now days is like a coco cola franchise, sell for big bucks. I was the second dealer to sign an agreement in state of Tennessee years ago. Not many new dealerships available now days . They have come a long way since the first days. The purchase of Great Plains /LandPride is going to help. Looks like they will build there first engine plant in the United States in the coming year.
 
Kubota around here in SJ are like flys on sticky picnic table. Just off the top of my head I can think of eight or nine within 50 miles. Very very popular with smaller operators and land scape, small construction, etc. Very highly thought of. I just love the color.
 
I would have to say IH back in the day. JD has always been a pain to deal with as a company. I sure would not have wanted to be selling a 2 cylinder against a foot clutch multi cylinder tractor. IF your talking about 1960 and after then JD. They then had a good product to sell.


JDs financing sold them a lot of equipment when IH was in money trouble and had tough financing requirements. The largest IH dealer around here was on the local bank board. HE sold tons of equipment that he personally co-signed for. He either got a trade-in or good down payment. So he was usually safe if the deal fell through.

The one thing I could never understand out of the Tenneco buyout of IH, is why they kept the IH territory and district people and got rid of the Case people??? IH company management is what doomed the company. This went clear down to the local level too. I know of many Case dealers that got shoved out by IH dealerships because of former IH company men. In my eye the IH men should have all been looking for work. IH was the one in trouble not Case.
 
a Brand that doesn't exist. I would like to make a tractor with comfortable cab, diesel engine. The engine would have to be No computer and fuel economy of a case or better. Shuttle shift with the rest all standard trans. No bells and whistles just a good usable tractor with necessities. 3 point 3-4 hyd outlets ,joy stick loader controls, good lights, easy in and out of cab steps, buddy seat, No push button anything. Power shift could be an option if it was as good as a Jd 4440 type. 3-4 power shift would be best. All hoses and fittings standard pipe or o ring, none of this crap British and British metric and metric mixed with standard. (so confusing ) If I had the money I would make such a tractor and would outsell every other brand as farmers are getting real sick of break downs that can't be fixed without a 3 day wait on computer.
We live 2018 and we still don't have a tractor built to last with a good dealer to stand behind them. Amazing what progress has not been able to achieve
 
Sometimes the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. From what I understand IH could be tremendously hard to work with and was very demanding. The local IH dealer always wanted to have more shortlines but did not want IH to pull the franchise because they were not pumping tractors and combines out by the dozen which was simply not possible in my area. The IH dealers in the western part of New York often were able to keep New Holland because they could roll out 806's, 1066's, whatever was new at the time by the dozen to keep the blockman off their throat. You covered the financing angle in respect to JD and IH so nothing to add there.

I remember the press release for the Case IH merger that said Case highly coveted the IH dealer and sales network so that is why they kept IH district men. The biggest problem with IH was the high level execs in Chicago. However, in this area the new company gutted the network of previous IH dealers in favor for what was already at the time a multi-location Case dealer. That move set Case IH back about 15 years in terms of market reach as for quite few were ------ about their favorite IH dealer being closed. And to let you know just how bad a screwup this was there were some JD guys that were ------ when their local dealers failed and Deere pretty much let it be known that those dealers would most likely not be replaced. Those guys would have bought IH for their next tractor if it were not for the dealer change issue. The icing on the cake was looking at red colored Cases on the lot in 1985 while Deere now has the 50'series row crops complete with full Powershift and MFWD waiting to be bought and knowing if a farmer's credit was reasonably good financing could be had.
 

If I had the money needed to get a tractor dealership these days I sure would not be working any more.
 
At this point and time Mahnidra along with Kubuta because of price with quality. This even though I have farmed for 50 years with,IH,MM,Allis,JD,MM,Case-IH and New Holland. Never have been particular loyal to any brand but am and was fond of MM.

"Mahindra and Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian multinational car manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.[3] It is one of the largest vehicle manufacturers by production in India and the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world.[4] It is a part of Mahindra Group, an Indian conglomerate."
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Kinda an interesting question. I was a city boy, NJ, burbs of Newark and NYC. At 16 we moved to MN and onto a farm. Being a city boy I kinda looked down my nose a clap trap buildings that were places of business. So while at first I was "gender neutral" regarding tractors that quickly changed. The MM, Oliver and Case dealers in the area were all in run down small buildings. Dad bought a few implements of various brands. Case never had anything. So the Case implements left in a hurry. Oliver wasn't much better. The AC dealer's building didn't look very good but they carried parts on hand like you wouldn't believe. SO I guess back in the day it would have been JD, IH or AC. Today? I'm with the others, Kubota!

Rick
 
Jerry,is there any attempt being made to get Land Pride and Great Plains dealers to take on Kubota? The former Agco dealer here lost their Agco contract when the owner died a few years back. They were a small dealer and were quite close to a much larger one with better buildings and a better location. They sell Land Pride and Great Plains though. I wondered if they might be nudged toward handling Kubota since they're still open selling short lines.
 
R I guess the answer to you question is the other way around.. ANY KUBOTA dealer that exist and is not a Land Pride dealer is being pushed to take Land Pride, the Great Plains lines is kind of out on its own. As for forcing say a NH dealer who had Land Pride to take on Kubota no, most likely if there is a KUBOTA dealer in the town they will get the Land Pride contract. Right now Kubota is at 1084 dealers nation wide and not really seeking new dealerships. Very few territories open and a man would have to have pretty deep pockets to put in one. Years ago as long as you had a building, and a few dollars in the bank they would talk to you but different story now.
 
Well it happened the opposite around here as there where several very good larger Case dealers that got closed and the IH dealerships stayed open. Then the attitude of the IH block men really hurt the CIH merger in this area. They pranced around like they where top dog rather than the distant second they where. They really did not catch up until around 2000. They had a pretty fair product but the CIH company was not much better than the old IH one around here. Fiat has pushed them along but I am not sure the product is as good as it was 15 years ago. The Cummins engines where much better than any Fiat out there. The Cummins motors was a big fact on many deals I was trying to get.
 
A lot of the region back during 1985-2000 was small dairy and the big thing in addition to the dealer issue was some of the products IH offered were soon eliminated by Case IH or replaced with what was perceived to be inferior products. Ford New Holland dealers greatly benefitted from Case IH reducing hay and forage offerings along with materials handling equipment or making changes in offerings. JD dealers benefitted as well.
 
Around here IH never sold much hay equipment. The CIH/Hesston rebadged stuff never sold either. So hay equipment was mainly NH and JD. It was mainly tractors and combines as the driving force for the majority of dealerships. Not many Ford larger tractors here so the dealerships had to make the NH hay tools sell. Very few NH combines here at all back then and darn few now.
 
My great grandpa traded in his IH 600 for a JD 830. He had the 600 one year and before that a W9 and WD9. Ran the 830 until he went to a 4020 in 1964. A neighbor of ours father back in post WW II went from a Massey 101 to a JD D. So it did happen.
 
Kubota. Hands down. No question.

Second choice might be Kioti. They are out competing Kubota and growing rapidly.

Ask me in 3-5 years and my first choice might be Kioti.

Dean
 
I've seen several Mahindra franchises open in my area and close within a very few years. There are none nearby now.

Such things rarely if ever happen to Kubota dealerships.

Watch out for Kioti.

Dean
 
Sorry,, missed the "back in the old days."

IH. No question.

JD second.

AC third.

Dean
 
OK,they were pretty low volume with Agco. They just took the number of Massey tractors that Agco made them take. At one time,they sold the heck out of Olivers,but when the whole Agco thing happened,the other nearby dealer took a huge chunk out of their sales. The other dealer had been an Allis dealer back in the day,but the merger of brands was a death blow.
 
As strictly IH hay and forage tools sold reasonable even if they did not command the market in this area. As said before right close to home nobody was selling tractors by the dozen so other products had to go out the door to keep places open. When Case IH happened quite a few dealers were lost so what was left could make it off of not selling the entire lineup of equipment. Ford tractors did well in small pockets especially if a dealer was perceived as being strong in support. Right into the dark period of the mid-1980's Ford ran behind AC in overall tractor sales on the other hand.
 
IH was the market leader "back in the old days," at least for full line dealers.

Upon re-consideration, I might choose Ford/Ferguson. The reason(s) should be obvious.

Dean
 
IIRC

Pre removal of sanctions on South Africa there was a worry on the supply of farm equipment including tractors. So local production was considered.

As there was a local plant the engine had to be Perkins

Then there was a survey of existing tractors as to features that were good and features that weren't.

Not sure where it went from there
 
................The J.I.Case Company..................
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@JDSeller,

Yes, a good question, but they thought IHC had the best dealers(they were full line) and company people, and believe I know cause I ask the questions, sure they kept some of the Case dealers and some of the company people, but yes they purged most of the Case organization.
Case Co, had purged all the machinery lines and combines. with all the support people. They told the dealer, we made you "The Tractor Specialist" LOL, most dealers picked up harvesting lines or complete lines, as Case had almost ceased to exist. Lots more to the story, but those are the facts.
 
Years ago would have been john deere, loved those old shops. Today not so much, their attitude has changed when it comes to working with the older tractors and their owners. At least here in Colorado.
 

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