What Would Have Become of Case If....

Tenneco hadn't bought the ag line from International?

I've read tons of posts regarding IH's future had Tenneco not stepped-in, but what if they didn't?

What was the viable path forward with J.I. Case with no IH ?

Just curious.

Bill

LOL O, no ,. You wanna start sumthin,. Case woulda waded on thru ,.

That's a good question. With that purchase they got the rotary combine which was a life saver.

My guess is one of two things. The would have either dropped the tractors eventually and focus solely on construction machinery. You can only go so long as a one trick pony. The other would be Tenneco would have bought some other machinery lineup so Case would get back offering a full lineup. Keep in mind in the mid to late 80s the major farm machinery companies were getting merged or divided up between each other.

The merging of farm machinery manufacturing has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Same thing with the automotive industry. Sometimes the mergers only delay the inevitable and eventually what was a very well respected brand just dissolves and disappears. Studebaker is one example.

If J.I. Case and International Harvester had not merged, both would probably be gone by now. (Just my opinion)

Probably be a division of Agco, instead.

Ag equipment was downsizing, bigger machines, less farmers, poor ag ecconomy, less sales of bigger implements.

We might be facing that again soon.

Paul

I don't know what would have happened eventually,but they were in talks with Oliver about a merger in the 50s.

JI Case would have continued with Tenneco money. IH would have declared bankruptcy and the assets sold to the highest bidder.

Case was doing fine and only bought IH for the selling outlets they held and for the fact they bought it for pennies on the dollar, the combine and unreleased transmission IH had was icing on the cake,, why they then put the IH people into the place they did after they had ran the company into the ground will never be clear to me,, I always laugh when I someone brings up that Case was a division of Tenneco,, Yes they sure was but Tenneco did not run Case, they backed it with the funds to make the Company grow and grow it did , had Case not been making them money they would have sold it off long before the IH Purchase, the Case CE division was growing by leaps and bounds, tractor sales were doing well and growing every year, as to what they would have become,, to me they would be a leader still today with the CE side ( still the #1 selling backhoe), they always had good tractor sales, Case was not in trouble when the IH buyout came,,

They would of merged or bought into some other organization. The question would of been would of they ended up as part of Agco, or maybe they would of bought up the end of Allis Chalmers and made Case-Allis or CMF (Case Massey Ferguson), Ford or tied up with someone outside of the US (like Allis Chalmers or AMC did) or bought up some of the short liners to build a line. As for International they were in a long slow death spiral, don't know how far they would of descended until they disappeared or merged into oblivion and could of ended up with any of the partners or scenarios that could of befallen Case or even snapped up by Ford who was acquiring assets trying to make their Agriculture Division viable. I heard rumors that clauses in Henry Ford's will committed the Ford Motor Company to producing tractors and those clauses were in effect while any of the beneficiaries of Henry's will were alive, this prevented Ford Motor Company form selling or quitting tractors until after Henry Ford II died, I don't know how true that was as William Clay Ford SR lived until 2014 and I assume he was also a beneficiary. Remember Ford bought New Holland and Versatile before they sold off that division to Fiat. Another scenario may of involved all of IH merging into Ford Motor Company with Trucks merging into Ford Trucks and agriculture into Ford tractor division, the interesting thought is if Ford would of kept the IH name and continued to produce and market trucks under the International name they could of started marketing Ford light duty Trucks and SUVs as Internationals and became a desired paring for import dealers to have for access to trucks and SUVs. Of course when IH agriculture fell to Case Ford was still a little weak financially so any involvement Ford would of had acquiring IH assets wouldn't of been financially possible until the later 1980's. But of course that isn't what happened so as fun as it is to talk about it it's pretty much a moot point.

I'll bet some of you are fantasy football fans, as well!

(quoted from post at 19:35:26 09/10/17) Tenneco hadn't bought the ag line from International?

I've read tons of posts regarding IH's future had Tenneco not stepped-in, but what if they didn't?

What was the viable path forward with J.I. Case with no IH ?

Just curious.

Bill

Click to expand...

Get one thing straight... Case didn't buy anybody. Tenneco purchased the IH ag division then merged it with Case who they had already saved from slipping into oblivion.

Whoever got IH would have had the base drive train of the Magnum which has proven to be one of the better tractors ever built.