R-cab

I have a MM cab that was built for the RTI that I am trying to decide what to do with. I would guess that it is even more rare than the other cab. Does anyone have any info on these cabs or production numbers? I have seen two different versions of this cab over the years. Any idea who made them, or is that info as vague as the manufactureer of the cab for the ag tractors? Lots of questions here..... ..are there any answers?

How about telling us a little about the 2 styles of RTI cabs. Do they look very similar to the ag tractor cabs? What is your opinion, do you think they made all the cabs at once and then modified them to fit the later tractors and the RTI's, or did they make them up as they went along? Any idea where the 400-401 figure came from that seems to be thrown around or is that just an educated guess? Seems as good as any to me. Other than selling your RTI cab to me cheap, I think the best thing you could do with it would be to find the correct tractor and put it on it.

BTW Kevin and I have taken our conversation about the Mail Carrier Special off the Board and are each trying to prove the other wrong. I think we have both made a new M-M friend.

As an aside, I think most of us have seen the picture of the then new ZTU with all the engineers around it. Surely someone knows who some of those fellas are. Can't someone find one or more of them and ask some of these seemingly unanswerable questions. The youngest one would now be over 80 and I'm sure most are gone, but someone has to ask these questions while these few remaining engineers and the production workers are still around. Just my thoughts.

Jim

On the subject of the ag tractor cabs....I would guess that all were made at one time. This is only a guess on my part. Some of the old MM people tell that the cabs were not well recieved by the consumer, and in order for MM to finally sell all of the inventory of these cabs, they finally put them on tractors at random durring the war. The farmer who was in need of a new tractor was told if he wanted a tractor he had to take one with a cab. Tractors were in short supply and this solved the problem for MM.

One of the MM Collectors club members did some extensive research years ago and was the one who came up with the 401 number of cabs built for the ag tracotrs. MM did not have any records that could be found on production numbers. He did however find the company that produced these cabs and derived the 401 number from their records. One can only guess again that the odd number came from possibly one prototype and 400 production cabs.

You make a very good point in your comment about trying to identify someone in those old pictures Jim. Now that the Arthur Jensen negative project is all but complete there are even more of these kind of questions that need to be answered!!

The mail carrier R-----don't you think that it was ever sold? There are several pictures of it. Like other items MM had pictures of and probably only made one, I can't help but think that MM sold that tractor. I think of the picture of the R on propane that even showed up in magazines in about 1951. It was probaly the only one ever made and that tractor is in the hands of a collector in Michigan today. MM was quite conservative in many ways, and I truly believe that if they built one, it was more than likly sold!

BTW, I would entertain offers on the RTI cab.

Perhaps I can shed just a very little light on one of the RTI cabs that you mention. I bought a 1952 RTI with Lull loader at auction a few years ago. Along with it came what the owner called a "snow cab". It would be like the smaller cab that you describe above as it has a curved plexiglas window in the top front corner of the cab. It also has an easily demountable safety glass window in a metal frame for the front of the cab. Each side of the cab has a safety glass window. The fenders are not M-M, but made for use with this cab and have one vertical strut on each on which the cab rests and is bolted to. You have to crawl over the ballast box in back to crouch over to get into the tractor seat. Maybe the most interesting thing about it is that it uses canvas to seal the cab and fenders. The fenders have little twist jobbies that you slip the grommeted hole of the canvas over and then twist to secure. Almost forgot that the front window has an electric wiper motor mounted on it, I'm missing the wiper arm. I got 4 manuals with it, 2 of which are for the Lull Model 4-A Shoveloader and they have the name of a Wm. H. Ziegler Co. Inc., 2929 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis 14, MN. This company also has their plaque on the loader and on the seatback of the tractor. Did they have anything to do with the cab's manufacture or were they just a distributor? Did Lull have anything to do with the cab? There is no mention in the literature of a cab. Seems like somewhere in the literate I saw something about this loader fitting an IHC I-4 also, and maybe an Ollie industrial. Maybe these tractors could be equipped with this cab, too. Maybe some of those boys know something about it.

Going back to the Mail Carrier Special, I don't recall what I wrote about it being sold, but I am saying they never sold more than one - my humble opinion. And, I think they most definitely sold the tractor, but probably as an RTN as it looks in the 2 pictures I've seen of it that it uses that front pedestal. I can't believe that M-M would offer that much different a tractor and not have a separate designation for it, but would sell it as an RTU, RTI, RTS. What is interesting though is that in the 1910-1959 Data Book No. 2 that the article about this tractor it is dated 1940 and in the R Production Registry there is 1 serial number in 1940 that is unaccounted for - No. 405222. Could that be the Mail Carrier Special?

Jim

i>Link doubt they made the cab, but if it sold in Minnesota, they probably sold it.