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Repeat tractor letter/number models

K

Kow Farmer

Well-known Member
I often wonder why the tractor manufacturers of all brands used the same letter model or number models
over? For example a Case C and an Allis Chalmers C and Farmall C etc. Was there ever any reason why this
went on for so many years? Just a cold February thought I had for today. Kow Farmer
 
While most used letters from the beginning of the alphabet, Minneapolis Moline used a lot of letters from the end. What can be confusing is some like John Deere used the same numbers on later models. Such as the 820, that could be the 2 cylinder or the later 3 cylinder, the same with 7520. Same numbers but totally different machines
 
Oliver never had a letter series. They started with drawbar and belt horsepower for a designation, then to the ''new'' model 70 because it burned 70 octane gasoline. The 60 and 80 went along with the 70s in a series and they evolved from there, 77, Suoer 77, 770 and on to the four digit numbers.
 
I don't have to buy many Deere parts with the limited amount of Deere equipment. I did hear they went back so far in the part number list and started over using the same numbers for new parts on later equipment. Parts guys have to check to make sure they order a part is comes as the correct one when it comes in. Must be some truth to it since My local parts guys have actually looked to make sure it would be the right part. As for the repeat letter thing I think it must have been either a competition thing or used as a method to confuse the rest of us.
 
Quite often one will read a post where the info just mentions a model number or letter .... no reference to brand. Some brand owners are ore guilty of that than others, for some there is only one brand in their tractor world.
 
I have not thought about different makers using the same letter such as C.

But I have thought about how it came to be that they used which letters in the way that they did.
Why did Farmall use Cub, A, B, C, H, and M? As you go through the letters, the sizes get bigger, yes. But why did they skip whole blocks of letters? From C to H. And from H to M.
A little more confusing on the Deere side. There's the A that's bigger than the B. And then the G that's even bigger than the A. Kind of no ryme or reason to that.
And with Ford (cars), they made the model T for years and years, and then came out with the Model A. And I think followed by a Model B for a really short stint.

Just kind of weird how they applied letters to the models.
 
I have not thought about different makers using the same letter such as C.

But I have thought about how it came to be that they used which letters in the way that they did.
Why did Farmall use Cub, A, B, C, H, and M? As you go through the letters, the sizes get bigger, yes. But why did they skip whole blocks of letters? From C to H. And from H to M.
A little more confusing on the Deere side. There's the A that's bigger than the B. And then the G that's even bigger than the A. Kind of no ryme or reason to that.
And with Ford (cars), they made the model T for years and years, and then came out with the Model A. And I think followed by a Model B for a really short stint.

Just kind of weird how they applied thier letters to the models.
 
I never got the repeated use of letters that had the ee sound. Supposedly the manufacturers put great thought into it as things were ordered by phone in those days and wanted to avoid errors. I guess this how it came to be when people asked for clarification such as are you saying D as in Donald?
 
Tractor models of the same "letter" across brands were rarely competitive, so I imagine it was a matter of "Who cares what the other guy is doing?" more than anything else.

As I have the most experience/knowledge with IH it's the only one I can really make educated guesses about, but I suspect that their choices of letters had to meet two criteria:
1. It had to go in order of the "size" of the tractor.
2. It had to roll off the tongue, sound good. I reason this because the serial tag prefix for an H is "FBH" but the tag for an M is "FBK." My suspicion is that the M was originally going to be called the K, but someone in marketing said that sounded dumb, so they changed it to M.
 
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