100 years of Fordson, Ford and New Holland Conversions
Posted by Chris Graham on 18th January 2020
Following on from 100 Years of Fordson, Ford and New Holland Tractors, published in 2017 to mark the century of Ford tractor production, our colleagues in the Blue Force Club have now produced a second volume. The new book, 100 years of Fordson Ford and New Holland Tractor Conversions (Tractor Barn Productions, tel: 01502 740114), is a very nice idea, especially given the recent 100- and 90-year anniversaries for Roadless and County machines, respectively.
The presentation of the hardback book follows the successful layout of the first volume, and the 528 pages include more than 1,400 magnificent, colour photographs. It’s a great reference work and should be compulsory reading for blue tractor enthusiasts everywhere, especially given its reasonable £29.95 (€35) price, although postage will add to this price considerably.
As you would expect, all the well-known and less well-known conversions are included in 100 years of Fordson, Ford and New Holland Tractor Conversions: County, Roadless, Muir-Hill, EVA, Schindler, Selene, Doe, Mailam, Northrop, Matbro etc. They are treated in chronological order in the first three chapters, with the first covering Fordson-based conversions (from the F to the New Performance Super Major). Chapter two details those based on Ford models (from the 9N to the Series 40) and, in chapter three, the New Holland-based conversions are spotlighted, right up to the present day.
As well as whole tractor photographs, we were pleased to find a good number of detail images in the new book, too
Part four of the book – called Living Legacy – shows how these conversions are put to work on events and working days by their owners. The book ends with two appendices, the first of which lists the conversion companies responsible for these magnificent machines. The second presents an interesting selection of the period advertisements produced by the conversion specialists involved.
I really enjoyed reading this book, learned a lot from it and was delighted by the variety of photographs included, and so am happy to recommend it to you all.
Wouter Croquey, Ford & Fordson Association rep, Belgium
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