Saturday, April 18, 2015

Selling the first Ford Ferguson tractors, 1939

Homer.  Mount Forest Magazine.  Number One, 1994.
The three-point hitch comes to North America. Designed by Ferguson in England, Ford acquired the rights to use this on his own tractors through the famous 1938 "handshake agreement."  The two companies went their separate ways in 1946 over legal disagreements concerning Ford's use of the Ferguson patents.  As Samuel Goldwyn famously quipped, "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

1 comment:

Mister G said...

From what I've read, Henry Ford loved farming, just hated the never-ending backbreaking work. This tractor was his gift to farmers and apparently the company never made money on the production. Ferguson on the other hand got rich. When Henry passed away, the company wanted to put an end to the money-losing deal, hence the lawsuit.