Crowds throng Ferguson milestone parade
Seventy tractors old and new paraded down the streets of Coventry, UK, to celebrate 'Little Grey Fergie's' 70th birthdayA tractor parade and exhibition staged by Culture Coventry in the UK on July 30 to mark 70 years since the iconic Ferguson TE20 tractor rolled off the assembly line has drawn in enthusiastic crowds, Massey Ferguson reported.
In July 1946, the first Ferguson TE20 'Little Grey Fergie' tractor was born out of its former Banner Lane manufacturing plant in Coventry. The tractor was the brainchild of engineer and inventor, Harry Ferguson, a founder of the present-day Massey Ferguson which is one of today's leading global farm machinery manufacturers.
The '70 Tractors for 70 Years' event featured tractors produced throughout Massey Ferguson's history since 1946. The tractors for the event were brought together by the Friends of Ferguson Heritage Club, which has over 5000 members worldwide and is dedicated to all things Ferguson, Massey Ferguson and Massey Harris.
Led by a 20.3hp 1947 Ferguson TE20, equipped with a two-furrow plough, and the mighty 400hp MF 8737 – the most powerful tractor in the current Massey Ferguson line-up – the procession wound its way through Coventry finishing at Millennium Place outside the Transport Museum.
Instead of Massey Ferguson's iconic red livery, the MF 8737 at the parade has been painted black as homage to the prototype Ferguson Black tractor of 1933, which was the first to incorporate Harry Ferguson's pioneering ideas for a three-point linkage system to connect tractor and implement.
In a tribute to the manufacturing legacy of the Banner Lane plant, Massey Ferguson named the black MF 8737 the 'City of Coventry'. Seated in the cab for the duration of the parade was the Lord Mayor of Coventry, Councillor Lindsley Harvard.
Other machines that joined the cavalcade include a 1949 Ferguson TEA20 fitted with half-track equipment, which travelled nearly 200 miles from Exeter in Devon. From much closer to Coventry was a 2015 MF 5610 Dyna-4 on turf tyres based in nearby Finham.
A beautifully restored, prize-winning MF 65 industrial tractor painted in the requisite yellow from Skipton, Yorkshire, represented the non-agricultural ranges.
Massey Ferguson Marketing Services Director Campbell Scott said it was wonderful to see the pageant celebrate the brilliant engineering of the Ferguson TE20, which changed the world of farm mechanisation.
"We are so proud of this superb legacy of practical and innovative technology which continues to inspire our design engineers and is at the heart of Massey Ferguson's 21st century mission to produce straightforward, dependable equipment to increase the efficiency and productivity of farmers all over the world," Scott said, who himself drove a 1949 TEA20 tractor in the blue livery of Brighton Corporation at the parade.
"Today more than 200,000 tractors bearing our famous Massey Ferguson 'Triple Triangle' brand are built every year for global markets."
The Ferguson TE20's 70th anniversary inspired Culture Coventry's current 'Tractors – From Factory to Field' exhibition at Coventry Transport Museum and a public display of the Daniel Massey Bronze Sculpture at the city's Herbert Museum and Art Gallery.
Culture Coventry manages three of Coventry's major visitor attractions including Coventry Transport Museum, Herbert Museum and Art Gallery and the Lunt Roman Fort.
The 'Tractors – From Factory to Field' exhibition will run until September 19.
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