When does a tractor become 'Vintage'

[CalG]

exactly what brand tractor is that ? it looks very nice ! That driveshaft looking thing going to the front of the tractor is that for FWD or to run a hydralic pump ?

It's a Fordson E27n. Made in Dagenham England 1950

That "driveshaft looking thing" is merely one of two push bars for the front mounted Western snow plow. I like to put the loads on the rear wheel axle, so carried the plow mounting back to the tool pads located there. The member is "repurposed" galvanized round pipe salvaged from an outdoor basketball structure. ;-)

I could wish the tractor were four wheel drive. but it does just fine with chains in winter.

The tractor's hydraulic pump is located in a unit with the 3pt lift cylinder under the seat. A packaged unit with it's own gear driven selector.

 

[careyo63]

I have 63 ford 2000 I was born the same Yr.. Antique or classic, Both sound about right!

 

[Mcrafty1]

My 4020 is a 1967 model, I was born in 56 so I don't feel like its anywhere near antique yet

 

[Noelie84]

I've always considered 'vintage' tractors to be anything from before things were standardized. Things like the 3 point hitch, live PTOs, integrated hydraulics, and loaders with two evenly spaced plate steel arms with tilt/curl/power down. The 'variety' days if you will, when everybody was trying to work around everybody else's patents and you ended up with every manufacturer coming up with their own unique system that only worked with *their* implements (things like Case's Eagle hitch, for instance). And then anything from that era forward to roughly 30 years ago is merely 'antique'

 

[S854]

This is a google answer...

Vintage Tractors: Typically 25 to 50 years old, often from the 1940s to 1970s.

Antique Tractors: Generally over 50 years old, usually built before the 1950s. These are often displayed in shows and are considered historically significant.

Google and the rest of the internet are at odds… Seems Craigslist list defines “Vintage” items as anything older than Windows 10, a non-working shell of its former self, preferably with paint/parts missing and listed at, minimum, twice the price of the particular item when new on a cost adjusted basis…

My Massey is “The Old Tractor”, Kioti being “The New Kid”

 

[HayFarmer]

I wonder who started calling everything "vintage". That actually is the year a wine was made. My tractors are "old": 1941, 1965, 1976, 1978, 1985.

 

[mkruger21]

That 4020 may not be an antique, but IMO it should be regarded as historically significant. While there were other brands out there, in the early seventies if you had green tractors many farmers owned at least 2 or 3 of them in the corn desert. As a kid I worked for many different farmers including my father and spent more time in the seat of a 4020 than any other tractor. My uncle had one that had been hopped up with an M&W turbocharger on it, and that tractor would run circles around my cousin's 4320.

 

[wb3czi]

exactly what brand tractor is that ? it looks very nice ! That driveshaft looking thing going to the front of the tractor is that for FWD or to run a hydralic pump ?

 

[vagem55]

Why do tractors need a different definition? My wife sells vintage jewelry. Vintage is normally defined as 20-99 years old, and antique 100+.

 

[Gord Baker]

Like the title says, what makes a tractor a vintage machine? I've not seen that defined on any tractor forums. I have a JD 4020, 1967 model year, that makes it 58 years old, is it a vintage machine? Is a tractor an antique? The definition of a vintage automobile is one manufacture between 1919 and 1930 but I find no mention of tractors, are they the same?

Call it whatever you wish. Great Machine.