Fiat To Aquire Ford New Holland Division

Ran across this old headline surfing today: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-08-01/business/9003040603_1_ford-new-holland-farm-
equipment-fiat-group

Basically it was news that Ford was selling 80% of their Ford New Holland division to Fiat.

I've read much about the sale of IH to Tennaco/Case to create CaseIH and much about the good, bad, what could-of, should-of, etc., regarding
the deal.

What about Ford sellIng to Fiat? I grew up around a Ford 3000 diesel - a great tractor. I've read good and bad about late model JD, IH and
CaseIH and MF tractors, but I get the impression that Ford was making some very good tractors at the time of the sale to Fiat.

What are your thoughts of the sale of Ford New Holland? Anyone running those tractors at that time. Just like there is/was much discussion
of the IH sale, curious to your experience, thoughts, opinions of the Ford sale.

Thanks!
Bill

It was never surprising as Henry Ford himself was the driving force behind his company selling farm equipment and that bug never caught on with his sons and the administrators that came after. The auto division was sickly in the 1980's but was well recovered by the 1990's so management so no further need to be involved with farm equipment. My opinion has been even during the 1960's farm equipment was something that Ford traditionally did and who was anybody to go against the legacy of old Henry himself but other than that I don't think too many top managers at Ford cared. Ford got big tractors wrong during the 1960's and a lot of it was due to attitude. Ford had a good thing going with the N series in the 1950's and the attitude was why tinker with success as it were. The same attitude prevailed during the 1960's with the near 100 horsepower market. The 8000 when it came out just never competed well here and seemed to appeal to the tightwad farmers. Ford did not help themselves when they contracted out implements from the late 1960's onward even though it helped their bottom line initially as it made them look like they were heading for the exits in terms of ag machinery.

I was distracted by a phone call. It should read the same attitude prevailed in the 1960's with the sub 100 horsepower market and specifically with the 2000 and 4000 and later 5000 series tractors.

All the big 3 were getting out of non automotive biz by the 80's. GM shed Frigidare, most government contracts, Chrysler got out of boats. The auto business was being globalized, and they needed the capital to put plants in places like Mexico and Korea. The Michigan plant that built tractors was turned into a engine plant in 1984. They built the first aluminum block V8's for Ford there.

(quoted from post at 17:11:09 08/09/15) It was never surprising as Henry Ford himself was the driving force behind his company selling farm equipment and that bug never caught on with his sons and the administrators that came after. The auto division was sickly in the 1980's but was well recovered by the 1990's so management so no further need to be involved with farm equipment. My opinion has been even during the 1960's farm equipment was something that Ford traditionally did and who was anybody to go against the legacy of old Henry himself but other than that I don't think too many top managers at Ford cared. Ford got big tractors wrong during the 1960's and a lot of it was due to attitude. Ford had a good thing going with the N series in the 1950's and the attitude was why tinker with success as it were. The same attitude prevailed during the 1960's with the near 100 horsepower market. The 8000 when it came out just never competed well here and seemed to appeal to the tightwad farmers. Ford did not help themselves when they contracted out implements from the late 1960's onward even though it helped their bottom line initially as it made them look like they were heading for the exits in terms of ag machinery.

Click to expand...

Most companies farmed out (pun intended) implements to other manufactures even back in the 60's. Was far cheaper to buy with new UAW contracts and the looming retirement bennies spelled out in those contracts than to run a line and having to eventually pay out. Walk in and buy something already in production or have them built for which ever company with the implement painted to meet buyers (I.E. IH, JD ECT.) needs with appropriate decals applied.

Rick

RIck

The subcontracting by other companies such as White and Case were far fewer machines versus Ford. Besides IH and JD, AC was nearly full line in the 1960's with the others besides Ford not far behind. Small farms were disappearing then so by the 1970's the market was not there for products a lot were selling and most lacked the R & D money to adjust.

If you had blue underwear, that was the day the world got turned upside down... It's more or less been that way ever since because that was the beginning of a slide in quality and service that has never ceased since.
I think the core reason for the sellout at the time was that tractors were not a core business to Ford and they realized that they would never be one of the big players at that point without merging with someone else. Fiat, at that time... was probably their most logical partner because they both largely cornered respective segments of the market in certain markets that generally did not overlap. The eventual acquisition of CaseIH completed their entrance into the mainstream of row crop farming which neither one were ever a factor in previously.

Rod

(quoted from post at 17:11:09 08/09/15) It was never surprising as Henry Ford himself was the driving force behind his company selling farm equipment and that bug never caught on with his sons and the administrators that came after. The auto division was sickly in the 1980's but was well recovered by the 1990's so management so no further need to be involved with farm equipment. My opinion has been even during the 1960's farm equipment was something that Ford traditionally did and who was anybody to go against the legacy of old Henry himself but other than that I don't think too many top managers at Ford cared. Ford got big tractors wrong during the 1960's and a lot of it was due to attitude. Ford had a good thing going with the N series in the 1950's and the attitude was why tinker with success as it were. The same attitude prevailed during the 1960's with the near 100 horsepower market. The 8000 when it came out just never competed well here and seemed to appeal to the tightwad farmers. Ford did not help themselves when they contracted out implements from the late 1960's onward even though it helped their bottom line initially as it made them look like they were heading for the exits in terms of ag machinery.

Click to expand...

I don't think that Ford ever made it own implements. I know that a Ford planter I had, a 309, was made in the early 60's, maybe before, and it was contracted out. I have relatives that worked in the Romeo tractor plant, and I can't think of where Ford would build the implements. I think a old disk I had was made by Bush hog, even tho it was Ford blue. The Romeo plant suffered from low volume. They weren't selling enough tractors to pay the light bill.

I've not operated any of their new stuff, but I spent many hours on a 5000, 8000 and TW-20. The 8000 wasn't the greatest, but the other two were great tractors.
I think if the 5000 were being built today, they could sell as many as they could make
Pete

(quoted from post at 17:29:21 08/09/15)

(quoted from post at 17:11:09 08/09/15) It was never surprising as Henry Ford himself was the driving force behind his company selling farm equipment and that bug never caught on with his sons and the administrators that came after. The auto division was sickly in the 1980's but was well recovered by the 1990's so management so no further need to be involved with farm equipment. My opinion has been even during the 1960's farm equipment was something that Ford traditionally did and who was anybody to go against the legacy of old Henry himself but other than that I don't think too many top managers at Ford cared. Ford got big tractors wrong during the 1960's and a lot of it was due to attitude. Ford had a good thing going with the N series in the 1950's and the attitude was why tinker with success as it were. The same attitude prevailed during the 1960's with the near 100 horsepower market. The 8000 when it came out just never competed well here and seemed to appeal to the tightwad farmers. Ford did not help themselves when they contracted out implements from the late 1960's onward even though it helped their bottom line initially as it made them look like they were heading for the exits in terms of ag machinery.

Click to expand...

Most companies farmed out (pun intended) implements to other manufactures even back in the 60's. Was far cheaper to buy with new UAW contracts and the looming retirement bennies spelled out in those contracts than to run a line and having to eventually pay out. Walk in and buy something already in production or have them built for which ever company with the implement painted to meet buyers (I.E. IH, JD ECT.) needs with appropriate decals applied.

Rick

RIck

Click to expand...

We didn't get 30 and out retirement until the 1970 contract, I think it took until 73 to become effective. Making implements was a low volume biz, not really suited for a assembly line operation.

The reason ford sold their agriculture and big truck divisions (sterling) was because they was not majority stock owners anymore and the tractor division was there biggest asset then big trucks so they sold them to regain majority ownership and thus make it family owned once again (which IMHO is why they survived and gm and Chrysler did not). As for their tractors I think they were good dependable tractors for the most part. the bigger row crop tractors were behind a bit in the horsepower wars ,but they remedied that with imho one of the best tractors of all time, the 70 series ie 8970,best cab/seat,awesome powershift,supersteer front axle,3pt rocker switch on ouside rear fender,no clutch fwd. rev, shuttle list goes on, but that is just my humble opinion.

Fix It Again Tony!

I humbly agree. Have two 70 series Ford New Hollands used for the primary farming on our operation and really enjoy them.

Josh

Ford never seemed committed to agriculture about when the 1000 series tractors came out. The little ones depended upon the good design of the 100 series which depended upon the n series. But anything bigger was hit and miss. They never ever were on anything other than tractors, the machinery was just repainted other stuff, and the combine deals they made were just disasters, perhaps the combines is what killed them down on the farm the most.

The transition from small farm 1970s to big farm 1990s was very hard on every segment of agriculture, a miserable 20 years, and it was pretty obvious Ford was not in it for the long haul early on. They ended up with great engines and pretty good tractors; but there were many missteps and an obvious lack of wanting to go forward in the ag market.

Case wasn't much different.

What surprised me was Ford and Case and IHC ended up under the same roof. You had three pretty good tractor designs and only one machinery line (oh, New Holand added a good hay machinery line, but Fiat already had their own so it was kinda doubled up anyhow) out of all that, seemed like a lot of overlap.

I wonder where it goes in this next farm depression? Will we have JD and then all the rest combined by Fiat or by the Agco emblem into one company of all the other brands but JD? That would have to get weeded down to single lines of new stuff. Will be interesting. Maybe not good, but interesting.

Paul

The backbone of my farm is Ford blue and NH red. As to the tractors, 6 pre merger 7610s/7600s a pre merge 5600, and a post merge TB 110 (which is supposed to be a rebadged tier III 7610). The TB 110 is what I'd expect from a new tractor with 20% of the hours of my next lowest. Engine is strong, but even with more hp and more cubic inches its not as much more as the literature suggests (of course you can juice the older pumps a lot easier). As to New Holland, seems that the equipment and replacement parts quality goes down every year and prices mostly up, though I do get surprised. Pressure plates and short blocks are both significantly cheaper than they were 2 years ago

In reading "Wheels for the World", by Douglas Brinkley, you get just that opinion of the attitude at Ford and from whom, none other than the founder himself. If he had his way we'd all still be driving Model T's and you could have it in any color you wanted as long as it was black!. I have a 2000D 4 cyl. and a 3000D in my corral and for what they are, they are great, very fuel efficient, and very reliable.

I guess the difference was in that the Dearborn was at least exclusive to Ford dealers where the other stuff could be found at other suppliers sans the Ford blue paint. Pittsburg, Glencoe, or White tillage. Oliver combines and IH hay and forage.

That was when I lost interest in current tractors!

Actually... by the time the old man left the chair he was quite a senile old bugger. The company was losing a LARGE amount of money for simple lack of management. It wasn't until after the war when Henry Ford II took over that things started to right themselves again. I don't think it was so much that the tractor division suffered from lack of managerial interest... it was just that there were so many other fires to put out that it simply wasn't the top priority. The tractor modernization program happened in the early 60s but reality was that by that point in time Ford had more or less missed the opportunity to move into the larger row crop market and kind of became stranded in the utility market... which they more or less dominated in many areas.... but in the grand scheme of things that wasn't enough in the long run.

Rod