Ever See an Ivory Oliver 70?

By Sam Moore
Published on March 1, 1999
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This Oliver – a 1948 – came along well after the year when the Oliver Farm Equipment Company sponsered a contest to select color combinations for their farm tractor. Farmers who "voted" in the promotion were given commemorative leather key cases.

Last month, I wrote about the trend that developed during the late 1930s and early 1940s toward brighter paint colors and more streamlined sheet metal (read Tractor Designs: Styled or Unstyled? from the February 1999 issue).

I ran across an interesting story from 1937, about a contest sponsored by the Oliver Farm Equipment Company, that let farmers choose the color combination they liked best on their Oliver tractors.

The Oliver Company conducted the “Oliver ’70’ Tractor Color Voting Contest” at the principal state and sectional fairs of 1937. The Oliver fair exhibit consisted of a voting table surrounded by six specially painted Oliver Row Crop 70 tractors. Farmers were asked to look over the differently painted machines and indicate their choice on a ballot.

A “nationally known color specialist” had selected the six color combinations:

– chrome green body, red trim and ivory lettering;

– regatta red body, aluminum trim with white lettering;

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