Russ' Vintage Iron

OMAHA (DTN) -- In last month's column, I wrote about a top 10 list of strange named, little-known tractor manufacturers. People like lists, although reaction to this list was, well, somewhat muted.

I did, however, get one email about my column. Here it is:

"The tractor on the old TV show "Green Acres" was referred to as a 'Hoyt Clagwell' tractor. Do you know if there was such a thing?

"While on the subject of Green Acres, when I was young and used to go to farm auctions with my dad at that time, they didn't use bidder numbers, they just used names. When a used equipment retailer (everyone called them jockeys) purchased something, they didn't like to have their name announced so the auctioneer would sometimes use a code.

"A very famous central Ohio auctioneer named Merlin Woodruff would sometimes cry "Eva Gabor" after he sold something. This told the clerk it had been sold to a local retailer named Green."

Dave Duff

New Holland, Ohio

Thanks to Dave for the question and the Green Acres-related story. Like I responded back to him, I certainly remember the show in reruns, but I'm not sure I have ever seen an episode.

I think most know the story of the sitcom: A well-to-do New York socialite and his wife move from the big city to a rural area to farm. One of the running bits of the show was the various mishaps of the tractor, including a wheel and the steering wheel falling off and what appears to be fireworks shooting out of the machine.

The "Hoyt Clagwell" tractor is not a real tractor manufacturer, just a name made up for the show. According to several websites, this tractor was actually a 1918 Fordson Model F tractor.

Fordson was Henry Ford's first venture into tractor manufacturing, and this was the first mass-produced tractor, produced from 1917 to 1928. It was also the most popular tractor at the time -- I remember reading that its share of the tractor market was like 90% at the time.

Both of my great grandfathers, who farmed less than 10 miles from each other in eastern Nebraska, had Fordson Model F tractors. The Model Fs were their first tractors, as I'm sure they were for many farmers in the 1910s and 1920s.

I know my grandma's dad, Adolph Grimm, had one from an old photo from the 1920s. My grandma's brothers were putting hay in the barn, and in the photo, this tractor sat near the barn.

And we know my other great grandpa, James E. Quinn, had a Fordson tractor because somewhere in my dad's house is the owner's manual for it. My grandpa told my dad that the tractor ran so hot it would burn the hair off the lower part of his legs from under his bib overalls as he operated it.

The story goes that it was traded in, and my grandpa and his brother bought a 1931 John Deere D. And then they traded that D for the 1935 D, which we still have. My grandpa used it to plow in the spring and my great-uncle used it in a nearby sandpit business.

Researching this column, I watched parts of some episodes of Green Acres on the internet. The show has one of the most famous theme songs of all time. I watched the theme song and during it, Oliver Wendell Douglas (played by Eddie Albert) drives a tractor in front of the old, worn farmhouse.

This tractor is dark gray in color, but it almost looked like it was a John Deere GP. Sure enough, I Googled this, and that indeed was what he was driving in the theme song.

The GP was only ever in the theme song, and the Fordson Model F was in many different episodes of the show as the Hoyt Clagwell tractor. These were the only two tractors that appeared in the show, according to various websites.

Of course, these two tractors are not the only tractors ever to be in a Hollywood production.

In "A Christmas Story," the 1983 movie is set in the 1940s, and in the parade scene, you can see what looks like to be several Farmall Ms and Hs pulling floats. I point this out every year on the holiday -- which my kids love.

The other movie with several tractors that comes to mind is in the 1984 movie "Footloose.".

The famous chicken scene has one kid driving a Massey-Ferguson 180 and the other a John Deere 2940, both with loaders. Later, Kevin Bacon's character is teaching his friend to dance, and he is sitting on the back wheel of a John Deere 4020 and John Deere loader in a field.

I'm sure there are other TV shows and movies with vintage tractors. What are some of your favorites? Let me know.

However, there is only one Hoyt Clagwell tractor.

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

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