Do you love vintage tractors?
As the Spring seeding season emerges, the smell of warming soil fills the air across the Prairies. Well, hopefully, unless it’s being temporarily interrupted by random snowfall of course. Nonetheless, Springtime always brings up thoughts of new crops and what’s to come in the year ahead. At the same time, for many people it also brings back nostalgia and memories of what it was like seeding in years gone by.
No matter how old you are now, if you grew up on a farm in the Canadian Prairies, you heard stories of “when I was your age…”. Most of these stories involved lots of snow and horses, and some of the best were about the old equipment. Some of it was simple in it’s brilliance and some clearly required improvement! Vintage tractors today hold a special place in many people’s memories.
What’s your favourite vintage tractor?
One of the favourites growing up on the Cawkwell Farm was a bright green 3010. These were built in 1961-1963. This makes it technically, not quite old enough to be considered a “vintage” tractor. The internet says a tractor must have been built in 1960 (or before) to be considered vintage. However, while it didn’t seem old when I was young, and it might be considered a whipper snapper in the vintage tractor world, it didn’t take long for it to be vastly surpassed in size, strength, and complexity.
The John Deere 3010 was available in row-crop, row-crop utility, standard, and orchard versions. There were 44,000 made in North America and it’s original price was $4,700 USD.
Click here to enjoy a great video on vintage tractors, featuring a 1937 John Deere AR and a 1953 A.
Happy seeding, and happy story telling while the snow is still falling!