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Allis Chalmers

N

NY 986

Well-known Member
Not much of an AC man though they had some good products. The Ford 9700 thread got me to thinking how effective AC was as a competitor and that is not said to be an insult to Ford. Ford was at its best in terms of dealers here where they had industrial contracts near big cities, in the heart of orchard or vineyard country, or had good shortlines that acted as springboards to big tractor sales. No matter where in the upstate region there seemed to be one powerful AC dealer for each county. It did not hurt that a lot of them had NH accounts among others. Just noting how much the equipment landscape has changed from my younger days in the 1970's and 1980's to today.
 
It is interesting how at one time in ag and construction Allis Chalmers was in a competitive position with Deere, cat and such then just didn't make it for various reasons.
 
One of my biggest complaints while working for AC was that the company had no marketing research to direction in which the company should go. But then, none of the other farm equipment manufacturers did marketing research back in those days either. They seemed to build whatever they wanted to and then pushed it onto the dealers to sell.

AC had too many other businesses that they should have gotten out of many years before. Former executives of AC formed Agco and seem to be doing about the same thing as AC did; having too many different lines of equipment can not be the best use of company resources. They would have been better off picking the best products from the various lines that they bought (on credit) and building them under a single brand name.

My 2 cents worth.
 
I was told by an AC dealer back in the day that there were many years that AC did not want to spend money on R & D as at a maximum the ag division was around 12 percent of overall sales. They had the dealers but should have been watching the market leaders if nothing else. If other manufacturers were putting money into new forage harvesters for instance then maybe they should have done likewise if no restraints were had on the ag division. The 7000 and 8000 series tractors were too little too late as it turned out. If the 1980's had not been so bad for agriculture then maybe the 8000 series would have done better.
 
The perplexing thing is that overall AC was financially sound going into the 1970's and had farmers buying products across the line but they never advanced the products. Most manufacturers that built forage harvesters had a cut and blow design by the early 1970's but AC did not. If they could have had a late entry but one that had improvements they could have had a a respectable share for that market. I guess maybe it is like Spook said in the recent FNH thread that manufacturers decided there was not enough money in building implements given the cost but yet companies such as Deere, IH, and NH gave it a go for at a minimum of another decade or more with Deere and NH still building smaller implements. AC might have been around a while longer and the face of Agco today if it had been serious about the ag line.
 
I don't miss AC but I do miss our local AC dealer. He also had a lot of small engine parts in stock along with many other tractor related items.
Dad bought a AC 5040 in 1976 ? never did like that tractor ! Best thing we ever did was trade it off on a JD750 with MFWD in 1982 ?
 
The dealers were decent on average if nothing else. It just seems sad that a company such as AC just made things hard on itself without external forces. Oliver was ravaged by corporate raiders and IH was such a big company with many stock holders fighting over the direction of the company but not so with AC. Nobody was perfect across the board with ag products and it seems if some effort was put in AC could have been much more competitive going into the 1980's. Even if they were trying to save money on a corporate level they were not helping the dealers not all of whom had extensive shortlines to keep the doors open. Might have been nice to sell a manure spreader when nobody came calling for a tractor especially if you did not have a shortline to source it from. Quite a number of AC dealers had major shortlines while at the same time more than a few did not.
 
Just like the Indian Motorcycle Co. In the day Indian and Harley Davidson were about the only large motorcycle manufactures. Indian made basically the same engine and crash box transmission for over 10 years, on the big Chief V twin. Not much mechanical was considered for change. Then along with poor management the company went under. The company is going again, but will never will be big as it was. Like A/C when you are a big player, look to see why. Stan
 
One place AC really dropped the ball was the no-till drill. When they were doing research into no-till corn and bean planters, they also took what appeared to be an all-crop drill and mounted it on a toolbar with coulters in the front. It worked but management declined to market it because they had decided to stop making grain drills. AC could have been on the top of the heap in a new market with that one. Another place AC failed was the roto-baler. If they had upsized the concept and done some refinement on the mechanics, they again could have been top of the heap in a new market.
 
Out here in Montana they didn't have much of the market share. There are some around and we even have a D17 but the problem was they didn't make a big standard wheatland tractor which was dominated by the JD, IH, MM, and Case. When they did come with a high hp tractor it didn't fair too well sales wise against the JD 5020s and IH 1206/56s. AC however did make a decent showing in crawlers and the gleaner combines were popular.
 
If you look at AGCO right now compared to the AGCO of 15-20 years ago they are much more streamlined as far as brandnames are concerned, and they have kept some of the best products from discontinued brands. You're right, they should have already been doing it back then, though. I think management back then might have been playing to nostalgia and brand loyalty to keep customers.
 
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