The BBC aired a video this past September, Tractor Wars, Ferguson versus Ford, produced in Northern Ireland by DoubleBand Studios, and partially filmed here in Michigan. It can be seen on Youtube.
There are several scenes that show two of my tractors, my 1940 9N and my 1951 8N. I had agreed NOT to record the production, but I could not stop Youtube from putting it on the internet.
There is also a Ferguson collector with his tractor filmed in the old Ferguson factory in Detroit. Fun to watch. A bit biased for Harry Ferguson, but that is the way it was. Hope you enjoy it if you have not yet seen it.
On a side note, during some preparation for the arrival of the film crew, I discovered a box of my mother's, a photograph of my maternal Great-great grandparents...from Northern Ireland.
BTW, Thanks Ed Gooding for putting me in touch with the production company. We had a ball!

Click here to read Harold's take on the Ford/Ferguson partnership

A very good read, Ed. I'm very sorry that I never got to meet Harold Brock.

Could you imagine how cool it would have been to sit down with this man for a couple hours to learn more about Henry Ford and what went on back then?

Here's a cool photo of Harold at the 2006 Penfield tractor show with Don Barkley, the founder of Just 8Ns. Don is showing Harold his collection of original Ford Tractor blueprints, 12 copies of which existed as they were used in the famous Ford vs. Ferguson lawsuit:

Thanks to this post I watched it on Youtube and it was a fun video, particularly the shots inside the Highland Park factory (what is left of it) and the Ferguson location. Clearly it was a tribute to Harry Ferguson and gave him a lot of points he deserved as well as some,in my opinion, that he may not have. Since it was only an hour documentary it had to do some glossover and passby, but still there were some real debts that were owed to him. Seldom is noted the roll he played in convincing Congress and FDR to give the steel allowance to Ford for continuing the tractor production after war was declared. Ford was the only one that got it for that purpose. It was good also to mention his four wheel drive formula one car that was driven to victory by Sterling Moss in Great Briton one of their Grand-Prix races after Ferguson had passed.

Thanks for the post John.

Harry Ferguson was on his last dime and was desperate when he went to see Henry Ford. If Henry turned him down, he was pretty much finished. He burnt bridges with David Brown and with a few other people, including business associates, investors, etc. Without Ford, I doubt if there would ever have been the "Little Gray Fergie". Plus when Henry and Harry did the handshake, Ford engineers, along with the real guy behind the 3 point hitch Wille Sands, had to fixed a lot of problems with the lift system.

I'll give a little credit to Harry Ferguson, but Henry Ford, Ford engineers, and Willie Sands shouldn't be forgotten. Without them, there would be no Ferguson tractor.

Still without Harry's skills as a salesman the tractor would have died after December of 1941 when the steel allotments were restricted to military vehicles industry wide. Not saying Ferguson was overly responsible for the 9N, but still sometimes skills beyond those of inventor and engineer are required to bring a project into the full light. It really remains, that even though many of the Ford people believed him to be more trouble than help in getting the tractor into reality, probably justifiably so, it would never have seen the light of day without him and it likely would never have had a model past the 1942 9N had he not personally gone to Congress and then personally demonstrated one of the 9N's to FDR at Hyde Park. Roosevelt bought the tractor and authorized the steel allotment for the 2N for the remainder of the war.

I think Bob Gregorie, Edsel's design chief, told a great story about having to keep a draftsman near the door of the design studio equipped with dual badges for the clay mock-up of the hood. One said Ford, the other Ferguson and depending on which of these men were coming down the hall to look at things the appropriate badge went onto the clay hood. Such were things until the last of the project.

According to one of Ford's engineer, Harry was a constant nuisance when Ford was designing the 9N. Constantly trying to get his ideas into the design. From that engineer's perspective, Harry's ideas weren't that good and went against what Henry Ford wanted.

Seems like his idea for a tractor with hydraulic 3pt hitch and automatic draft control was better than any idea Ford engineering had come up with to date ;-) Without that there was no 9N.

Dan

Very interesting.

Thanks John for being an ambassador for our Ford tractors Very nice documentary.

Ferguson Vs Ford
This it?

• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FEyz-MYeE8

Yup

Hey John. I remember when they came over. I'll go find that film on YT. Here's a few pics of their visit with you: