I was always a huge fan of the Cub Cadet tractors that were made by International Harvestor going back to my youth in the 1960s. Our family bought a new 102 Cub Cadet in 1966 and I was in charge of most of the mowing. In 1978 I purchased a 1450 Cadet on my own followed by a 982 large frame tractor in 1982. The 982 was a beast with that big Onan engine with the dual exhaust. That was a great tractor but it suffered with steering that was a little stiff. In early 1983 John Deere came out with the 318 and 420 tractors that had that first true hydrostatic power steering and I made the mistake of trying a 420 out.
I approached my International dealer about the possibility to putting power steering on the 982 and we were never able to come up with a plan that would be as impressive as Deere's new steering. Consequently, I ended up trading for the Deere 420 and later, a 430.
Cub Cadet tractors, when developed and manufactured by International Harvestor, competed well with John Deere and in fact, and were considered a leader in this new market for premium lawn and garden products. Other than the first year or two of the original Cub Cadet the gear drive tractors used a direct drive, no belt, clutch that was mated to the same transmission that they used on the bigger Cub and Cub Lo-boy tractors. In 1967 the model 123 had their first hydrostatic transmission (I believe built by Sundstrand). Cub Cadet certainly knew how to develop the tractors that the consumer wanted.
Unfortunately as International Harvestor's financial problems worsened I think there was less investment in the new products and eventually Cub Cadet was sold to MTD. MTD did very little in my opinion to move the existing products forward and just continued to manufacture the line developed by International. And of course they dropped the IH connection and went back to the yellow and white paint scheme. That beautiful International red paint was gone. What a trajedy.
I've often times wondered in International Harvestor had kept the Cub Cadet line and put money into development that they would have products that are every bit as class leading as John Deere. Even after Tenneco merged the Case line with the International line to create Case-IH imagine if Cub Cadet could have continued as a serious division with plenty of development money. Imagine in 2022 if Case-IH was producing a beatiful red tractor with features similar or better than the say an Deere X758. Can you see that beautiful red pain shining in the sun?
It's nice to dream sometimes.