Custom tractor

Anyone have one?

No....Never heard of them before.

There were quite a few sold in the finger lakes area of western new york. I think there is one going up for auction at The Tired Iron Museum in Cuylerville NY
I think maybe March 14th 2013. Aumann Auctions internet only.

Welp,my uncle was an undertaker and he started his business around 1948 and he had this big hearse and it was a chrysler product,there were logos on the hub caps that said"Fluid Drive" and some chrome script on the rear body that said "Fluid Drive" His sons still have that hearse stored in one of theri buildings. From what I could understand of it it was an early attempt at an automatic transmission,thus the fluid,driving the car...I never persued it anymore than that

Keep in mind that my memory is old and muddled, but I believe they were made in Shelbyville, Indiana in the late '40s and early
'50s. They had a Chrysler engine and a hellacious road speed, probably 30 or so.

They were sold as Custom, Lehr Big Boy,Wards, Gambles and probably some others.

We had two neighbors who had Lehr Big Boys, but I think it may have been the same tractor that changed hands.

I hope somebody chimes in here with more and accurate info for you.

Michael,

I drove a couple of Chrysler products back in the day and they were not a "draggin" machine. They did have a clutch which you depressed, put it in gear and just let the clutch pop up and go. They took off about as fast as a Chevrolet PowerGlide.

Stan

(quoted from post at 08:36:47 02/08/13) Michael,

I drove a couple of Chrysler products back in the day and they were not a "draggin" machine. They did have a clutch which you depressed, put it in gear and just let the clutch pop up and go. They took off about as fast as a Chevrolet PowerGlide.

Stan

Click to expand...

Nope, not even as fast as a powerglide. They are really slow. You could start out in high gear,just release the clutch and step on the gas.

Just looked through the auction pics, #106 in the pictures.

Got a Wards version. We have a lot of fun at the pulls and parades. It gets a lot of attention anywhere we go.

That's a new one on me! All I can say is that someone was pretty optimistic, considering how those original fluid drives performed in vehicles. The latter Torqueflites produced in the sixties and seventies were just about bullet proof. I believe it was a Farmall I saw at a tractor pull that had a Chrysler Torqueflite in it and that darned thing would pull!

Just remembered....Jumbo was another name those tractors were sold under.

Stan

I had a high school classmate and good friend (class of 1952) that had one of the Ward's Custom tractors on his parent's home farm. Before they got the Custom they had used the little Ward's Twin Row tractors (B.F.Avery type) and I usta to kinda razz him about farming with "pee wee" tractors. So, when they got the Custom my friend asked me to come out to their farm and see the new Custom work. It pulled 2-16's pretty easily and the fluid drive was nice in that you could throttle down and the tractor would stop without using the clutch, then throttle up and go again. It seemed a little slow taking off in road gear but that was the only thing sorta bad about it I noticed. The Chrysler engine was sure smooth and pretty powerful. I was a Farmall guy all the way, but had to admit the Custom wasn't bad at all. A collector in our area now has a Rockol tractor which appears similar to the Ward's Customs.
A few years later I had a '49 DeSoto convertible with fluid drive. Usually starting out from a stop putting it in second gear position and then down to high as you speeded up resulted in much better acceleration than just starting out in high gear position. I always depressed the clutch when shifting into gear from neutral but did no clutching after that. The DeSoto was no drag race car by any means, but it was nice to drive in stop and go traffic and would go down the road as fast as any car with a relatively small flat head 6 engine.