New gaskets and old instructions.

Sort of surprised me when I received this gasket kit from an aftermarket supplier of engine parts. The instruction are good of course,but they date back to the Tenneco days. Did CASE have money troubles in the late sixties, just wondering why Tenneco ended up owning the Company. Rod.

Rod yes CASE was 'cash" poor and Tenneco came and gave them a infusion that really helped them on their way, they became very big in the industrial field and became the "Big Tractor Specialist" shortly after Tenneco bought them, for us at the time as a dealer it was a great thing, CASE grew a lot of different ways with the help of Tenneco backing

Hi Rod,

Oh my yes, they had already been sold off once to Kern County Land Company, and will say this personally Jim Kettleson and his team kept J.I.Case together with little cash,as I heard Kern County drained them.

Yes, hard times for the company, Mr. Kettleson went through the chairs and ended up running Tenneco. I have to say I was proud to meet him one time.

Dan

Rod,

JI Case was in and out of financial trouble since the 50's. The company just didn't have the management and dealer network to sell enough machinery to create enough cash flow to keep up with engineering, marketing, etc. Marc Roitman was Case President for a few years and greatly modernized the Case tractor lineup in 1957 and was responsible for the Case construction line. He also left Case with 300 million in debt and almost out of business in 1961. Case continued to bleed red ink throughout the early and mid 60's when Kern County Land company acquired the company for a song. A few years later Tenneco acquired Kern County Land and ended up with Case almost as an afterthought. Without Tenneco Case would have been gone in 1968 or 69, most likely.

JI Case was probably one of the most mis-managed companies ever that still manages to survive in some form. Don

Well said Don.

I had no idea Kern County Land Co. had owned CASE during that period. I would also have to assume CASE was developing the 70 series tractors before Tenneco and we know their pockets were not very deep at that time. It does appear the Tenneco involement was a good thing as things took off in the 70's and 80's. This mismanagement problem sounds familiar, a good friends father once owned a MM dealership, to this day they are very bitter at those that controlled that Co. Claiming MM should have remained in bussiness , but a few bled them dry. I have no idea what really happened there. Rod.

Rod,

You are 100% correct. The engineering staff did a remarkable job with the few resources they had in order to develop the 70 series.

I know a little bit about Case history as there was a son of a Case dealer, who reported to Mr. Ketelsen, while working for Case, whose job it was to find and report corruption. There was plenty.
This gentleman retired and lived a few miles from me.
In my opinion, Case and MM had a huge problem with their dealer networks ever since WWII. They both were a bit late to the dealer scramble and in the 40's would sign up practically anybody with $100 and a promise to order some machinery.
Theses dealers included hardware stores and farmers, which worked for a time, but by the 60's were ineffective at sales and service. Case also lost hundreds of good dealers in 1946 when they were hit with a year long strike. Many of their full time dealers had to pick up another line or starve. The part time dealers weren't as affected. When Case should have been making millions from sales right after the war, they were dead in the water for over a year.. An old Case dealer from northern WI told me they would get VAC's by the train car load (10 of them)and they would be sold within days, once the strike was over. That's why you will see almost no 1946 model Case tractors. I know it sounds like a small thing, but the strike put Case behind the competition and they could never catch up. Don

Tom: How did you survive as a dealer not having other equipment to sell? ie: Balers & other Hay Tools, Planters, Combines & everything else CASE discontinued. All that allied equipment means floor traffic, parts sales & good will.

John, we were a Ag/Light Utility dealer, meaning we could sell all Ag products as well as construction equipment, backhoes up to a 680, crawlers up to a 450, forklifts, Uni-Loaders and we also had the Davis units as well when CASE bought them, later we also sold Vibromax compacting equipment, in 1973 we also became a New Holland dealer so that covered haying equipment, Case still had tillage equipment made by other company's and as such we were not affected as some dealers, we also had several other side line products as well, Woods, Bush Hog and Athens were a few of them, and the last years before we sold out we enjoyed selling a good number of compact tractors as well
cnt

I was just reading some on the MM / Oliver / White "merger" in 1969. It sure is a shame at times to hear how things were run or run into the ground on some companies. White wanted to put their name on tractors and ran things a little thin with money as they were working on a "corporate" tractor (MM-Oliver-White) with a constant velocity transmission. A few were built and tested but needed more testing from the sounds of it and there wasnt enough money to continue. I think alot of money was swipped from Oliver and MM to put towards Whites truck line as well.