By PAUL WALLEM

During my grade school years (in a one-room country school), I don’t remember any arguments about the color of our family cars.

What I do remember are the endless disagreements about our dads’ tractor colors. That never ended, even during high school and in vo-ag classes. Each kid knew his dad had the best brand tractor.

Let’s talk about the origin of these colors, and when the various tractor manufacturers decided on their production line paint.

I began with YouTube and Classic Tractor Fever, then dug out my box of tractor and collector magazines, including Heritage Iron, Red Power, Harvester Highlights and Farm Collector. There was plenty of information on tractor color history, so I’ll share it with you in this article. This will only be a summary – there’s plenty of history to write a book on the subject.

Most of the early 20th century tractors were painted drab colors, often charcoal or gray. There has been speculation that military paint surplus from WWI was inexpensive and the tractor manufacturers wanted to take advantage of that. Some colorful models showed up in 1914, when Allis Chalmers started using orange paint. During that same period a few manufacturers started painting the wheels red on their gray tractors.

Deere started using green and yellow as their corporate tractor color in 1918 when they purchased Waterloo Boy. They felt these colors represented a new green crop in the spring and the yellow represented the harvest season.

McCormick and International tractors were predominantly gray until after the Great Depression, but they were painting wheels red before that. They were also painting implements such as their ensilage cutters and corn binders red, cream and some blue as early as 1917. (I wonder why these bright colors did not appear on their tractors till so many years later?)

Farmalls were the largest seller in 1936 when their standard color became “Farmall Red.”

At a 175th Case reunion parade the entire gamut of colors appeared. Through the years, Case painted their tractors gray, deep green with red wheels, gray with red wheels, and orange. The 1948 model S was all-red. For many years orange with cream was standard. Following 1985, the CaseIH tractors were red.

Ford tractors stayed gray until the early 1940s, when they introduced the red/gray color scheme. In later years they used gray with red underbelly, blue with gray fenders, gray hood with blue body, and all-blue in later years.

Oliver used a variety of greens through the years, and in 1937 the model 70 was all-red. An Oliver historian stated that it is easy to use a wrong paint because multiple paint manufacturers supplied Oliver in earlier years, and their shades varied. He emphasized that traditionally dark green was used along with red wheels and yellow grilles.

Massey Harris switched from gray to red with yellow wheels in 1939. Their 1936 orchard tractor was green with yellow name on the hood. Other colors in their history included bronze, green and straw yellow. Massey Ferguson colors ranged through Ferguson green, gray, flint gray and red.

Minneapolis Moline from 1929 on used numerous shades of what was called Prairie Gold. When MM bought Avery in 1951, that brand also was painted Prairie Gold and sold as a Minneapolis Moline tractor. MM used numerous shades of Prairie Gold through the years and in 1963 switched to Energy Yellow. Some manufacturers changed the shade of their paint at times but stayed with the same hue.

One of the few standardizations in color amongst the tractor industry came about gradually – the use of yellow for industrial and construction equipment. Various shades were used but the primary reason was for safety on the roads and to differentiate between agricultural and industrial use.

Often the manufacturers would deviate from standard paint designs to draw attention. International Harvester shipped 5000 1950 Super A models painted white as demonstrators. They did the same with Farmall Cubs during January, February and March of that year, and also conducted a white baler promotion. It drove dealers crazy, as many customers wanted their purchase to be repainted red. In later years IH used promotional gold demonstrators. I recall 544’s, 826’s and 1026’s with gold paint.

There are other brands with colorful histories, but I’ve run out of space.

In closing let me suggest this. If you have school-age children and live in a rural community, ask them if tractor-color arguments still go on.

Paul Wallem was raised on a dairy farm. He spent 13 years with corporate IH in domestic and foreign assignments. He resigned to own two IH dealerships. He is the author of THE BREAKUP of IH and SUCCESSES & INDUSTRY FIRSTS of IH. His email address is pwallem@aol.com.