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Bryce: There are a number of factors at play here. The number one in my mind is safety. The red cab with straight doors is a ROPS cab, whereas the Excell or white with the door angled in at bottom is not a ROPS cab. If a roll over occured with a non ROPS cab you are almost certainly going to be history. At least with the open station tractors, you did have chance, all be slim, of jumping clear. I can remember a purchase of several 1066 by one customer all in one sale. They were ordered with ROPS cabs. When the tractors came in to dealer they all had the non ROPS Excell cab. The customer refused to take the tractors. IH had to change all of them to ROPS cab. I bought one of those Excell cabs from IH for $500. and modified it a bit to fit my 656. I was always very concious of who I let drive that tractor. Since my farm was quite flat and that tractor did mainly haybine, baling, corn planting, drilling, spraying and plowing I considered the risks and acted accordingly. I did have a 1066 with the ROPS cab at the time. Cab gets you spoiled, and since hired help was doing most of the 1066 jobs ie forage harvester, manure spreader, field cultivator and disk. I couldn't see me setting out in cold on 656. I agree very much the Excell is a much more attractive cab, easier to see the work around you and yes even easier to get in and out of. As to why a lot of these cabs are coming off air packs up, heater the same, insulation is falling appart, dirt is penetrating the cab, etc. One thing about the old open station tractor, the dust may hit you but at least it blows away. I can remember baling hay for example 560D open station was my tractor of choice, even when the other two were idle.
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