Ford

When and why did Ford buy New Holland?

Ford bought up NH in '86 & they parted ways in '91. Think Sperry was ready to cast them off in the mid 80s due to the crummy economy & Ford was there to buy them out. Don't recall exactly why.

Mike

Probably so they would have some decent hay equipment to sell for a change.

Sperry needed the parts and dealer network Ford already had in place, Ford sorely needed the tried and true hay and skid loader line

On a side note, I remember needing a water pump for a New Holland combine that had a Ford 391 gas engine in it. The Ford part number was clearly stamped on the casting.
I walked into the local Ford car dealership parts department and I said: "I need a water pump for a Ford engine in a New Holland combine...."
The parts man instantly said: "No! No! No! No! No!" and told me he couldn't even try to get it.

Ford ag division had devolved into mostly just tractors, if they wanted to continue they needed more ag items than just tractors. Was a good match.

But then the automotive side of things got bad, and Ford used up assets supporting the automotive side, the tractors got less engineering, the tried and true hay equipment continued on, combines and such didn’t get the engineering advances they needed. So it didn’t really go far due to lack of funding and research.

So Ford spun the whole ag off to concentrate on automotive.

Owners of Case, now Case IHC, figured better to own them than to compete against them, so bought up the mess into the multi lines of stuff they have.

Paul

yeah. the older Gas NH combines used Ford power units so they "should have been able to get the water pump"

Loved my Ford 5640 tractor, but won’t buy a blue CaseIh. Gave up on NH hay and manure handling equipment, there is now better stuff available.

How many different brands does Case own? I've got a dealer up the road that sells MF and Bobcat compact tractors. Is that Case?

Seems like all it is now a days is JD and Case.

MF is part of AGCO. Bobcat is owned by Doosan.

I agree maybe ford will buy em back

Dont know,,but,,,heres your sign

Case doesn’t own anything fiat owns ihc New Holland and case ih

(quoted from post at 05:48:52 09/22/20) Loved my Ford 5640 tractor, but won t buy a blue CaseIh. Gave up on NH hay and manure handling equipment, there is now better stuff available.

Click to expand...

Funny how others say they won't buy a red Ford tractor.

(quoted from post at 08:18:33 09/22/20) How many different brands does Case own? I've got a dealer up the road that sells MF and Bobcat compact tractors. Is that Case?

Seems like all it is now a days is JD and Case.

Click to expand...

Case doesn't own any other line of equipment, nor did they buy Ford/New Holland.
Ford bought New Holland in 87 but sold the entire AG division to Fiat in 91, Fiat later bought Case IH and combined them together to form CHN

Got it. So is John Deere just John Deere? They don't manufacture anything under a different name correct?

(quoted from post at 09:21:10 09/22/20)

(quoted from post at 05:48:52 09/22/20) Loved my Ford 5640 tractor, but won t buy a blue CaseIh. Gave up on NH hay and manure handling equipment, there is now better stuff available.

Click to expand...

Funny how others say they won't buy a red Ford tractor.

Click to expand...

40 Series was the last of the Ford designed tractor models.

The new NH and Case IH tractor are all Fiat designs, a nephew has a mid 2000 Case, his neighbor has a similar year NH, they are the same tractor just different colors.

I wrote you a long, 10 paragraph reply, but it was censored. Either a machinery company name triggered the censor, or I misspelled something and it came out bad.

Anyhow, I gotta go do hay. No time to sort through. Dang, I was kinda proud of what I wrote, as far as I intended.

JD tends to license technology from others and stick their name on it, so no, they don’t make stuff for others. They are buyers, not sellers, of concepts.

Case and IHC got merged then added Steiger and New Holland and some other smaller bits and is now owned by Fiat. Case and IHC got swallowed up in bad business choices in bad economic times, Ford/NH got sold off as a cash leverage to support a very weak auto company in hard times. Together they are a bit too redundant, and struggle to make dealer networks work out. Case and Ford were weak on anything other than tractors, International was weak on business management, all struggled with the 1980s ecconomy.

Agco merged up about 20 different lines of equipment, most of the smaller weaker ones from the 1970s like White, Oliver, MM, MF, Allis Chalmers, and so forth. A lot of very good companies and designs there, but just underfunded. They are struggling on how to go forward with it all. Lots of good dealers near here, but I understand they are weak in some areas for dealer support? They now try to push a European type design of machinery and tractors into the USA, which hasn’t been real successful. In my area MF was never very popular, so it is a dead brand; and it appears the brand Agco is trying to push into as the main label. That’s going to be tough.

Cat got into the ag business and got out, called Lexion and run by Claas now, they tend to hop in and out of the USA every 10-20 years. Pretty much only tractors and combines, Claas has forage choppers and balers as well I don’t know how they sort out their dealer support on all that.

Kubota made a big push into more ag stuff, and bought up a few hay and tillage companies and designed bigger tractors. But their big tractors weren’t quite what the USA is used to for a bigger tractor, and so have been a little quiet as they try to figure out a good path through the economic struggles of ag. I believe they intend to be around and a force in USA ag, but they are in a bit of recovery mode.

Paul

Thanks Paul!