What happened to Oliver as a tractor mfgr.?

Texasmark1 · Oct 14, 2013

Just curious. I have only known one guy with a smaller one, like 30-35 hp and it seemed to have some crude looking but very useful inventions that weren't seen elsewhere in the day. Folks that have them rave about them. I know that White got involved later on and I only knew one guy around here with a White 100 which he liked.

Maybe others would be interested in this too.

Mark

Allan in NE · Oct 14, 2013

Turned into White via AGCO? Still goin' strong as far as I know.

Allan

oldtanker · Oct 14, 2013

Both Oliver and MM were bought up by White Motor CO in the early 60's. In the 70's White merged Oliver and MM under the white name. Later White was bought out by AGCO as was MF. The only tractor brands produced by AGCO now is MF, Challenger (Cat), Fendt and Valtra. AGCO has closed down the Allis Chalmers brand name too (AGCO did not buy the construction division of AC, that was sold to FIAT).

Rick

Anonymous-0 · Oct 14, 2013

White Motor Company bought Oliver on November 1, 1960. White also acquired Cockshutt Farm Equipment in 1962, and Minneapolis-Moline in 1963, and the White name was gradually used on more and more of the tractors; and in 1974, the Oliver name disappeared completely from the tractors.
Wikipedia: Oliver Farm Equipment Co.

mkirsch · Oct 14, 2013

There's quite a bit of history on the web about what happened to Oliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Farm_Equipment

buickanddeere · Oct 14, 2013

For a while the green Olivers and red Cockshuts were identical tractors except for colour and badging.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Parr

They are Fiat now.

RGMartin · Oct 14, 2013

(quoted from post at 08:38:19 10/14/13)

They are Fiat now.

Huh?

CNH is Fiat.

Ande · Oct 14, 2013

They are Agco now

rrlund · Oct 14, 2013

It's a long story. They were doing good,loaned some money to White Motors in the 50s. Times got tight in ag in the late 50s and White wouldn't repay the loan. Two corporate raider brothers by the name of Mailman bought enough shares of Oliver stock to have controlling interest. They turned right around and sold it to White,so White bought control of Oliver using Olivers own money. By the late 60s-early 70s White was having tough times and milked Oliver as a cash cow just continuing to make the same old products that had been out for 10 years. They had some excellent patents and ideas,including a patent on the CVT transmission in the late 60s. I've seen pictures of the prototype that they were going to put that transmission in and if White had spent the money and tooled up to build that tractor they would have buried all the competition at the time. But,the truck division burned off all the equity of the ag division and that was the end of it all.
Readers Digest version.

rrlund · Oct 14, 2013

They were identical until 1946 and then from 1963 on. In between Cockshutt built their own. The only connection to Fiat was that Oliver/Cockshutt/Moline and White sold some rebadged Fiat utilities. Prior to that Oliver sold a few David Browns as Oliver 500s and 600s. When Texas Instruments bought White Farm Equipment in 82,the Fiat sales ended and they got their small utilities from Iseki in Japan. A big mistake,but that was the end of the relationship with Fiat. There has been no connection since. Allis Gleaner Corporation (Agco) is an American owned company.

RodinNS · Oct 14, 2013

They were acquired by White along with Minnie Mo and Cockshutt. White proceeded to stumble along into the late 80's where they merged with NewIdea for a time until they eventually fell into AGCO's hands as one of their first acquisitions.

Rod

old harv · Oct 14, 2013

CNH is fiat NOW. In the 60's when this happened, CNH existed as a mess of separate companies, Ford, International Harvester, Case, McCormick, and New Holland are the ones I know of. There may be more. Fiat was something nobody ever heard of until Cockshutt and Oliver started selling them. Examples are the 1265 and 1365. RRlund has a beautiful example of a 1365 back a few pages.

mkirsch · Oct 14, 2013

McCormick? You must be talking about the spice company, because the McCormick name was still on IH equipment in the 1960's, and the McCormick brand tractors just started out here again a few years ago.

RodinNS · Oct 14, 2013

Fiat NEVER owned any of the pedigree's that were involved in White motors. White did market some of the Fiat tractors you mentioned as Cockshutt and Oliver models... and Fiat at that time was more or less a mercenary who would build a tractor for anyone who wanted to market the damn thing which included White, Hesston, Long, UTB, Allis Chalmers, etc. although they did own a portion of the Fiat-Allis construction joint venture for a period of time I guess...

Rod

Texasmark1 · Oct 14, 2013

"When Texas Instruments bought White Farm Equipment in 82"

Say WHAT? Since when did a transistor/integrated circuits/government products company invest in farm equipment? Never heard of such a thing and would have.

Mark

Texasmark1 · Oct 14, 2013

Amazing how bad management and pure GREED can put the screws to an otherwise great product.

Thanks for answering.

Mark

rrlund · Oct 14, 2013

They weren't very successful at it. That deal only lasted a few years then Allied Products had to come in and pick up the pieces. The bad farm economy doomed that one too,that's when New Idea came in to the picture.

rrlund · Oct 14, 2013

Kinda like SAME now. They build for all the big companies,including green and yellow ones.

pete 23 · Oct 14, 2013

That is very interesting. Never really heard anything except White bought them out. Had an uncle who worked at Charles City, Iowa Oliver factory for many years.

david from mo · Oct 14, 2013

texas investment owned white for a short time

mab570diesel · Oct 15, 2013

ford tractors was bought by fiat in 94-95 fiat just uses the new holland name because it already was a household name in america as the fiat name probably wouldn't sell well in the u.s. and then latter acquired case international none of which were affiliated in the 60's not sure what you're talking about?

Texasmark1 · Oct 19, 2013

Well I assure you Texas Investments is not Texas Instruments by the wildest figment of your imagination. Get your facts straight before you embarass yourself.

Mark

What happened to Oliver as a tractor mfgr.?

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