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.