Customer Reviews

International Harvester Experimental and Prototype Tractors

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I strongly recommend Guy Fay's _IH Experimental and Prototype Tractors_ to any serious IH fan. Guy has clearly done his homework, and the book contains a great selection of archival photographs and interesting text about the development of IH tractors and crawlers, plus some miscellaneous engines and equipment.

Parts of the book took a long time to read, since (for me, at least) it can be hard to digest the details about the really early tractors. Titan 10-20s, Mogul 10-20s, Mogul 8-16s, International 8-16s...I don't have any experience with the real antiques like that, and so it's hard for me to keep them straight when I'm reading about them. Guy's text is well-written; there's just a lot of detail there.

The chapters about the newer stuff, like the Letter Series Farmalls, were easier--still had lots of good detail, but there I had some frame of reference. Lots of really interesting photos of the many prototypes and predecessors to the H and M--some really beautiful tractors, and some, as Guy says in one caption, "plug ugly" ones. (Plus a simply terrific full-color cover photo of an experimental Super M).

There's also some neat stuff about the patent-infringement concerns IH and Allis had, concerning the Allis B (which was first, and patented) and the Farmall A (which was second). Great reading--really added some depth and understanding to the story.

I did have one disappointment: In the chapter on post-WWII development, Guy has a section titled "The Great Transmission Chase," which begins, "The mid-1950s saw an enormous amount of IH farm tractor engineer attention going into transmissions and draft control." The following text gets into planetary gearsets, torque converters, hydrostatics, and even more unusual stuff, which is fine--but I'd hoped for some insight into the reasons for and nature of the 560's transmission problems, and maybe some details of the corporate thinking behind the decision not to adopt the 3-point hitch.

Guy's book is about experimentals and new developments, and perhaps the trouble with the 560 was that there _wasn't_ much experimentation or new development, so the book may cover the right stuff. But the 560 seems to me to have been a very significant tractor for IH, in terms of the IH/John Deere relationship, and I was hoping to read more about it.

But that quibbling aside, Guy's writing, illustration, and editing are all very good, and this book is a definite keeper.

--Dean Vinson

Seller had great communication and was very friendly. This item was in great condition. I would buy from this seller again.