Calling on all old Fergie owners

CALLING all Ferguson tractors: You're invited to a 60th birthday party at the Wairarapa A & P Show at Clareville this weekend.
Peter Cameron, from the Wairarapa Vintage Machinery Club, is involved in a display of the little British tractors, and he's calling on all owners of Fergies to bring them along.
"There could be 10, 12, 15 of them around. There's still a lot on farms around the district," he said. "They were very popular ? they ran on the smell of an oily rag."
Peter's an authority on Fergusons and their equipment. He's featured in overseas magazines and contributes photos and articles to various publications.
The Ferguson tractor, born in 1946, was the invention of Harry Ferguson, an engineering genius who experimented for many years with lightweight tractors hauling mounted ploughs. His system transferred the weight of ploughing to the rear wheels, increasing traction and allowing small machines to do the work of heavier ones.
In the mid-1930s Ferguson mounted his invention on a David Brown chassis, and this remained in production for to years. Ferguson showed one of these to Henry Ford, and this resulted in a "handshake agreement" that led to the Ford 9N, or Ford Ferguson, in 1939.
After the war, Ford got greedy, cut Ferguson out of the deal and stopped paying royalties, although it still used Ferguson technology. Ferguson sued, resulting in Ford having to pay the largest settlement in its history to that time.
Ferguson went into production with his own tractor in England after the war, initially with an American-built Continental engine, replaced later by one from the English Standard Motor Company. (This motor also went into the TR2 sports car). American production began in 1948, again with the Continental engine. The English models carried the designation TE (tractor, England) followed by a model letter, while the American ones were TO (tractor overseas) plus the model letter.
The little Ferguson TE tractors played a huge part in the development of rural New Zealand. They had a big range of attachments, from mounted ploughs to discs, sickle bar mowers, lifts, posthole diggers and cement mixers. Fitted with tracks, they even hauled Sir Edmund Hillary to the South Pole. Many are still hard at work around New Zealand and the rest of the world today.
Ferguson merged with Massey-Harris in the early 1950s to form Massey-Ferguson, and this company still makes tractors.using the Ferguson system (as do all tractor manufacturers).
Peter Cameron has eight Fergusons in varying states of restoration, plus around 60 implements, many of them too small for modern tractors. The tractors include one of the Ford models, a diesel and a 1955 TEC, a narrow-track variant for vineyard and horticultural work.
Peter is planning to take four or five of his Fergusons to Clareville and hopes other owners will join him. Setting-up starts around 8.30 ? 9am on Friday.