100 Years of a Old Fordson F Model

“The farmer does not stand so much in need of new tools, as much of power to run the tools he has, I have followed many a weary mile behind a plow and I know the drudgery of it.” — Henry Ford Henry Ford had experimented with numerous tractor ideas before a serious design was tested in early 1917. This was then hurried into production later that year to be available to help Britain’s food production due to World War One. A contract to the British Government for 6,000 of these ‘MOM’ (Ministry of Munitions) tractors was filled before production was available to American and Canadian farmers, and subsequently, the world. The first shipment of the mass-produced Fordson, according to local press, was “on the water” in November 1918, and this ‘first shipment’ was advertised as sold out in July 1919. The F model, or ‘Detroit’ Fordson as it became generally known, was the most common of pre-World War Two tractors, where some 750,000 were built from 1917 to 1928. There has always been a fascination amongst some tractor collectors about the pre-1920 Fordson made at Ford’s Dearborn, USA, plant before the move to the Detroit facility.