Allan Dippie's tractor collection featured prominently at the Wheels at Wānaka event when it ran. Photo / Allan Dippie
By RNZ
Allan Dippie is well known in Wānaka for not only his developments but his astonishing vintage tractor collection, which has caused “chaos” of blocked roads as thousands turn up to get a peek.
Dippe’s love of tractors went “out of control”, from just one in 2017 to about 300 today.
But he’s having trouble storing them in his two rugby field-sized sheds, so is selling more than 100 in an auction this weekend.
“They’re not like stamps, are they? So that storage is a bit of an issue,” he told RNZ’s Midday Report on Friday.
“It’s just chocka, chocka, chocka, any more and it’s counterproductive ‘cause then you can’t get the one you want to drive out easily.”
He’s not sure how much the collection has cost him over the years, but it was enough for his accountant to put her foot down and forbid him from buying any more.
“So then I had to kind of find devious ways of disguising them to get them into the collection.”
The hobby has taken him all over the world, including the US, Australia, Scotland and Ireland to collect rare ones like a Ferguson Brown prototype, R&P, and a Saunderson – the first kind the British royal family had at their farms, he said.
The oldest dates to 1916.
Because he’s ended up buying whole collections, some are double-ups, which he hopes to get rid of at the auction.
“The problem with tractors is you can’t take them to a retirement village very easy.
“The retirement village isn’t really going to accept a tractor collection turning up on its doorstep.
“So people have to eventually sell their tractor collections.”
His machines were a main event at the popular Wheels at Wānaka, which started in 2019 and had its last run this Easter.
“We had 65,000 people turn up, and it blocked all the roads in and out of Wānaka, and it caused chaos, really.
“Tractor chaos. So we’ve stopped doing that now.
“People love coming and looking at old tractors and trucks and cars and bulldozers and things like that.”
Dippie reckons New Zealand had one of the best selections of tractors in the world.
“I found a lot of tractors under trees over the years and brought them back to their prime working order.
“We restore them and love them. It’s a very strangely satisfying occupation restoring tractors. You wouldn’t believe it.”
While most were working, some were still “project tractors”, he said, but the challenge of getting them started “is just too much fun to ignore”.
“The very early tractors were really designed to kill you on startup or, if not, then in how they operated because there’s a lot of moving parts flying around and some of them you have to start in the most unusual manner.
“Some of them you have to start fires and cause explosions, and there’s some that you have to start with shotgun cartridges and cigarette butts and all sorts.
“There’s all sorts of weird ways of starting vintage tractors, and so it’s a dangerous occupation as well.”
Although he believed he might still be in deficit after the auction, he was looking forward to having more room.
“I’ve loved it and I’m going to keep collecting tractors.
“Although it takes a pretty special tractor to join the collection now.
“I’ve got to slow down and … make sure I’m a bit more discerning with the tractors I bring into the collection over the next few years.”
The auction went online two weeks ago, and the live auction will be on October 11, where the sheds will be open for the public to take a look and place their final bids.
- RNZ