The Rise and Fall of International Harvester Garden Tractors, Before They Became Cub Cadet

In 1961, International Harvester released a small garden tractor called the Cub Cadet. Nobody expected what happened next. Within two years, nearly 49,000 units had been sold — almost five times what IH had projected. For the next two decades, IH would build the most capable residential garden tractors on the market, using the same farm-grade components found in their full-size agricultural equipment. This is the story of how one of America's largest companies — the fourth-largest in the United States in 1979 — built a product line that grew from a simple 7-horsepower machine into a 19-horsepower diesel-capable tractor with a three-point hitch. From the Original in 1961, through the narrow-frame era, the wide-frame expansion, the Quietline series, and the peak of the 82 Series in 1979, the Cub Cadet was never just a lawn mower. It was a farm tractor built for the suburbs. Then, in 1981, IH sold all of it. A 172-day strike, $2.4 billion in losses across three years, and a collapsing farm market had pushed International Harvester to the edge. The Cub Cadet — still profitable, still in production — was sold to MTD Corporation. 693,658 tractors had been built under the IH name. The cast-iron rear end that had defined the machine since 1961 was replaced with aluminum. The IH symbol was removed. This video covers the full IH era of the Cub Cadet — what made it exceptional, why it was sold, and what was lost when it changed hands.