Ten and twenty years ago antique tractor shows and antique tractor pulls were money making attractions. Today many don't charge a gate fee anymore and attendence is still dropping in central Minnesota. Hot rod truck and tractor pulls can still charge $20 per seat and will fill the grandstands. The really big shows like Rollag and Butterfield are doing well too.
Money and interest are the big factors. I'll add another factor: the ability to repair, own, and show the equipment that you dreamed of as a kid.
I'm in my late 50's, I grew up in the 1960's. As a kid, I didn't enjoy running older tractors that were much made before I was born and I sure don't want to own one now. People under 40 grew up in the 1980's when big iron was the normal on the farms that survived. The few people under 40 who grew up an a working farm mostly drove bigger, newer tractors.
By the late 1960's and early 1970's most new tractors were getting larger, heavier, more expensive and more complicated. Functions that were mechanical on older tractors were now controlled by hydraulics: steering; brakes; shifting; 3 point hitch/draft control and PTO. Diesel engines replaced simpler distillet and gasoline engines. Transmissions that were simple 3 to 6 speeds grew to become 8 to 18 speeds with synchronized gears and hydraulic shift on the go. Bare tractor weights increased from 3000 to 6000 pounds to 8,000 to 16,000 pounds. Cabs became common with noise isolation, heat and air conditioning.
The older pre-1960 tractors like JD A's and IH M's were relatively inexpensive and simple to repair, shed and haul around to shows. Newer post-1970 tractors like JD 4430's and IH 1066's are much larger, more complex and much more expensive to repair, shelter and transport to shows. A large truck and heavy trailer are needed to move a single big tractor. Many of those tractors are either still working and are still expensive to buy or they are completely worn out and ready to be scrapped. The $15,000 to $25,000 cost to buy and restore a big tractor limits how many big iron tractors a person can restore, if they even have the ability to do the work themselves.
Younger people will still collect the things they dreamed of as kids, just like we did. They just didn't dream of the older tractors.
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Today's Featured Article - The Niagra View Mobile - Powered by a 1959 Ford Tractor - by Mark Massey. In 1959 the Niagara Frontier Transit Inc. of Buffalo, New York designed and built six Viewmobiles for the Niagara Frontier Sightseeing Inc. for use as a sightseeing ride at the Niagara Falls State Park, Niagara Falls, New York, powered by a 1959 Ford 611 Tractor.
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