January 2000
Bill Vossler
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Ford Tractor Co. of MinneapolisThe Ford Tractor Co.
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Sometimes these truth-stretchings were relatively innocuous, like Eagle's claim their tractors ran as well on kerosene or gasoline, which testing proved was not so. Or Liberty Tractor Company's claim that 'The fine adjustment of bearings makes the Liberty Tractor so light in draft that it can be pushed back and forth on the sample (showroom) floor with one finger.' (Later amended to read 'one hand.') These were not earth-shattering or fraudulent claims.
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But the same could not be said for other tractor companies interested in making a quick buck. As C.H. Wendel writes in the Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors, 'For a few years, the tractor industry was a helter-skelter assortment of big companies, small operators, and outright charlatans.'
Ford Tractor Company of Minneapolis
Ford Tractor Company of Minneapolis, Minn., had nothing to do with Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Mich.; and yet everything to do with it.
The point of the Ford tractor manufactured by Ford Tractor Company of Minneapolis in 1916 was to take advantage of the reputation of the Ford name, piggy-backing on the success of Henry Ford and his Model T automobiles. Nothing legally wrong with that: no Ford tractor existed at the time. However, the methods of FTC of Minneapolis clearly blurred ethical lines, and became fraud.
Henry Ford wanted to manufacture a tractor, but the success of his automobile kept him so busy W. Baer Ewing beat him to the Ford name in 1915.
Ewing had planned his scam carefully. He found Paul B. Ford - no relation to Henry - and asked him to design a 'Ford' tractor.
In reality, Paul B. Ford didn't know the difference between a tractor and a trampoline. A Better Business Bureau document of the time explains that Ewing found Ford's name in the city directory. They met for the first time and made an agreement which allowed the company to use Paul Ford's name, for which he would 'receive certain definite compensation...'
Ford Tractor Company claimed: 'Mr. Paul B. Ford, inventor and designer of the Ford Tractor, has devoted years of his life to its study. He nurtured his idea until he found men who were willing and able to convert his idea into a reality. He conceived the idea of a light, servicable (sic) farm tractor.'
But Ford, who was employed by a heating company, knew nothing of tractor design. Ewing wanted Ford solely because of his last name. The tractor had been designed by a Mr. Kinkaid.
Ewing claimed the company was making two tractors a day in its Ford Plant, and when the night shift was started, it would produce five a day. He said orders with the $75 deposit were pouring in from all over the world, and the tractors were being sold quicker than they could be produced. The company was making money.
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