Best Tractors of All Time

You city folks won’t get this. I have seen many newspapers ask readers to send photos and stories of the favorite cars that they have owned. But among country folks, there is no more spirited debate than this: What is the best tractor of all time? Farm folks spend hours gawking at tractors at fairs and antique tractor shows.

I was thinking about this as I taught multimedia skills last weekend at the Agricultural Media Summit in St. Paul, Minn.

Ask people to send in photos and stories of the best tractors of all time. Here are some likely nominees.

Agriculture.com is planning an NCAA bracket-style contest where readers will vote for favorites. Cool idea.

There are 41,800 photos of “greatest tractors” on Google Images. The McCormick M is the first model I ever drove — a very distinctive sound. Where I grew up in Kentucky, we actually had a tractor-driving school down at the Ford tractor dealership.

Have fun and let me know if any of you do anything with this.

By the way, I think the same idea could apply to motorcycles and bicycles. Not long ago, one of my son’s young friends came by riding a banana-seat spider bike, just like I had when I was 11. I saw a forum thread on that very topic on a bike website.