Not Ready to Retire: The Speedex S-19

By Jerry Mattson
Updated on November 7, 2024
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by Jerry Mattson
The Speedex on the Gulf of Mexico

In 2016, Charles Jennings of Foley, Alabama, was pouring concrete at a residential work site when he saw something interesting in the garage: an old Speedex S-19 garden tractor in an open wooden crate, mostly disassembled and missing parts.

Before moving south, the property owner had used the Speedex in tractor pulls in Ohio, the same state where the tractor was built (in Ravenna). The owner showed Charles photos of the Speedex in action at tractor pulls and trophies he’d won with it. “I had to have it,” Charles says.

The two agreed on what Charles thought was a fair price. “I paid $550 for the tractor and the utility trailer to haul it home,” he says. His best guess is that the Speedex was built around 1966.

Modified for use on the pulling circuit

It took Charles three years to put the tractor together. He replaced the missing rear wheels with two Ford-bolt-pattern 15-inch rims and new tires. The front tires show their age, and Charles thinks they may be the originals. The hood would not fit over the large 10hp Briggs & Stratton engine left over from the tractor’s pulling days. He determined it was a military version used on stationary applications, like powering pumps in Korea and Vietnam.

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