Ford-Ferguson

1954Frank

Member
Please forgive a novice if this has been discussed to death. I have been reading a lot about the Ford-Ferguson hand shake arrangement from about 39 - 47. But... on this site there are serial number lists. There is one for Ford-Ferguson with different number ranges than for 9N and 2N Fords. What am I missing? Thanks
 
Thanks for the response, and sorry I did not make myself clear.
Here is the Ford-Ferguson serial number page
https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/snlookup.cgi?mf=FERG&md=Ford-Ferguson
Here is the Ford 9N page
https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/snlookup.cgi?mf=FD&md=9N
The 2N page
https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/snlookup.cgi?mf=FD&md=2N
You can copy and paste the links into your browser. I noticed the serial number ranges for each year do not agree with the Ford's.

I guess my question is: were tractors manufactured, marketed, sold as Ford-Fergusons, separately from Fords?
Thanks
 
my understanding of this -ford had a handshake agreement with harry to use fergusons 3pt hich system on their ford tractors.went that agreement went bad?harry built&sold his own tractors.i have owned&worked both in the field.a te20 and a 2n.two very different tractors.use the same implements&rear rires with rims.sold the 2n,kept my ferg :}:}:}
 
ford tractors with ferguson hyd 3pt hyd systems.

ford and ferguson ended their agreement in 1948 thererabouts.

then ford 8n

Ferguson to-20 (US manufactured)

if I goofed someone will come along and correct.
 
There is a problem there for sure. The total for 9N + 2N should add up to the total for Ford-Fergusons. The handshake started to break down in 1946. There were 315 TE 20's built in 1946. The last 2N was built June 30, 1947. The 8N actually started production in 1947.
 
Are you getting thrown off by the "starting serial number". There may be somewhere that the
"ending serial number" is found. The other thing is, many engines were built for spare parts,
and for industrial applications. Maybe they used the same series of serial numbers? Many more engines than complete tractors.
 
First, you need to know that ALL standard production Ford-Ferguson 9N and 2N tractors used the "9N" prefix in the serial number. There was NEVER a '2N' s/n prefix code. You also need to read the list of s/n's by production years to verify model year. There are lists available everywhere. Now, here?s the HISTORY. I?ll try to keep it short, but that may not be possible to do so. Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford were like two brothers from another mother. Both were of Irish decent, both were raised on farms, and both dreaded farming techniques of the day and wanted to make it so life on the farm was better and the farmer could actually make a living instead of the constant drudgery it had been. Harry Ferguson was in a partnership/business arrangement with David Brown in England. They had produced the 1936 Ferguson-Brown Type ?A? tractor which had the first crude working version of the new draft control lift system. Eber Sherman, whom was a former partner with Ferguson in their Ferguson-Sherman deal that produced a plow for the Fordson tractor, convinced Harry to go to Detroit and show this to Henry Ford. In mid-October, 1938, Ferguson and one of his engineers, John Williams, packed up a F-B tractor, s/n 722, and a few implements and sailed from Belfast, Ireland to New York on their way to Detroit. From New York they traveled to Detroit by train along with the tractor and implements for a meeting with Ford. On a crisp November day ( some say it was October but it took 2-3 weeks to sail from Britain to New York ) at Dearborn, Ferguson demonstrated the draft control to Ford and reportedly his response was, ??eureka! this is it!?. A kitchen table and two chairs were brought out from the house and the two men sat down to discuss a partnership for producing a new tractor. The details were never written down and only the two men knew what was actually said, but the bottom line was that Ford would manufacture the tractor and plow and Ferguson would be the distributor. They shook hands as what was known as a ?gentleman?s handshake agreement?. The following day the tractor and implements were in a hangar at the Ford airport where the Ford engineers would begin R&D?g for the new Ford Tractor with Ferguson System. A few years later this would be the site of the Willow Run plant for B-24 production during WWII. Building ?B? at the Rouge Complex was set up with engineering offices and production for the new tractor and by January, 1939, Ford had the basics drawn and prototypes were built for testing. Ford had to design their own tractor and plow as both were crudely built and not suitable for North American farming. Ferguson and his team sailed back to England as he had to first break his partnership with David Brown. They had only built and sold about 1200 Type A tractors from 1936 to 1939. Both men had wanted out for some time as they did not see eye to eye on many issues. Ferguson had not told his partner why he was going to the US to meet with Henry Ford neither before he went nor on his return. This was part of Fergusons? personality ?a bit devious and a shrewd businessman. He certainly wasn?t a true engineer. He had some technical training but the truth is Ferguson was not the inventor of the 3-pt/draft control system. The true inventors were his team of real designers and engineers, Willie Sands, Archie Greer, and John Chambers. Harry Ferguson held the patents to the 3pt system as well as many of the Ford 9N ones because Henry Ford despised patents and lawyers even more ever since his encounter over the Model T Selden patent suit, of which Ford was the victor. The patent rights would come back to bite Ford after the lawsuit was filed by Ferguson upon his dismissal at Ford in 1946 by Henry Ford II. Civil action 44-482 was filed in New York by Ferguson in January, 1948. It would take several years of legal arguments before the case was finally over in April, 1952 with an out-of-court settlement of $10 million being granted to Ferguson. This was only about 1/10th of his what he originally sought. A big factor that worked against him was that in 1946 after his dismissal at Ford, Harry had set up a factory in England to produce his own tractor, based on the Ford 9N as he had a set of original Ford blueprints. With a few of his own modifications, the new Ferguson TE-20 model, for ?Tractor?England? rolled off the line at Coventry, England. The success of this model resulted in Ferguson building his own plant in Detroit to produce a USA version, called the TO-20 Model for ?Tractor-Overseas?. The first TO-20 rolled off the new line in Detroit on October 11, 1948. On July 7, 1947, Ford had released their new model, the 8N, 8 for model year 1948. They had improved the 3-pt system now adding Position Control to it. The rest is history as the 3-pt changed the world of farming forever after. Both Ford and Ferguson needed each other. They could not have accomplished things on their own, that much is certain. If you want the best account of Ferguson, get a copy of Colin Fraser?s book, ?TRACTOR PIONEER -THE LIFE OF HARRY FERGUSON? of which much of these facts were taken from.

Tim *PloughNman* Daley(MI)
 
Where did you hear that? Spare parts? Some engines were built as replacements later on with no s/n stamp, if that is what you meant. Also, industrial models used their own ID and export TVO/kerosene burners -9NAN and such. In addition, the Ford-Ferguson Moto-Tugs of 1943 used a special BNO s/n prefix.

Tim *PloughNman* Daley(MI)
 
Very impressive Tim! I was going to type all this out days ago, but my fingers asked me not to. Every time I research details and spell check and get the grammar right... some one tells me I am wrong or full of manure.... And yes! people need to read more printed mater- books, not just bits that pop up on line someplace.
A couple things to add to yours, Ford was thinking about dropping the whole ag line even before the war- possibly selling it all to Harry as soon as he had enough money? So considering the conditions in the UK during and after the war, Harry was trying to get Ford to amp up tractor production- not for the profit, but as a British patriot, people in the UK still had rationed food - years after the war ended. When Ford refused-oh! Henry ll, 'cause old henry was already in bad shape, physically and mentally, so the 'handshake' meant nothing to Harry or especially Henry ll. So, at that point in time, 'Ford Mo Co' refused to re-start UK ag manufacturing.
Yes, the famous lawsuit was just the draft control, not the whole tractor. It would seem Harry had the Standard people design the TE 20 to look much like a 9N- just for spite. None of the men involved were saints, yet people still worship them... too bad. They don't buy enough books on the subject. If they did... they might start collecting Allis Chalmers or Massey Harris...
 

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