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Subject: Info on Gold Demo Hundred Series Tractors

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Ed Gooding (VA)    Posted 03-04-2011 at 08:12:27 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [Email]  
  • Info on Gold Demo Hundred Series Tractors
  • This is a paper, authored by Ralph Alexander, who presented it to the Ford/Fordson Collector's Association:

    Ed Gooding (VA)    Posted 03-04-2011 at 08:40:18 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [Email]  
  • Info from members here about the Gold Demo tractors
  • Burt Hudson: I own ser 60949 GOLD DEMO 871 Powermaster diesel' PS double remotes. It is orig. and my dealer friend who opened Ford tractor business in 1953 to 1985. Told me each dealer got at least one Some dealers also got the 971 or 981 There were over 2000 dealers in USA and Canada in 1959 Also I have seen two with 4x4 and one 971.


    Don Barkley: Randy Leffingwell stated in his book "Ford Farm Tractors of the 1950's", on page 79, that "The first tractor assembled with the Select-O-Speed,serial number 60949,was manufactured on January 16,1959.It was part of a fleet of Model 861 introduction tractors painted gold and provided to Ford's distributors."
    You might want to try and contact Randy for your further questions.Super nice guy.
    randy@rleffingwell.com
    805-967-2953


    Kirk-NJ: Tony Jacobs has a lot of info on the gold demo. You might want to contact him. If you don't already have contact info just let me know.


    Feron Dalton: The golds started around 60-61000 Ford had 2600 dealers each one had to take at least one. I know that other dealers had two or three. The dealer could pick from any model 601, 801, 901 1801


    Gaspump: Just looked it up and you are also very close on the number of dealers. In May of 1959 the total number of US dealers was 2538. Of these only 676 were in Ford controlled District Sales Offices and the rest were in distributorships and yes the distributorships were primarily controlled by Harry and his henchmen. As to Ford Canada, Ford Tractor had no direct contact with the Canadian dealers. The tractor dealers in Canada were under Ford of Canada/Ford Division and fell in line under Ford Division HQ US (automotive) so Ford Tractor may not even had an accurate count of Canadian Dealers. So doing business with them was like this, Ford Tractor contacted Ford US in Dearborn, They contacted the Ford Canada who in turn contacted the Canadian dealer, same thing on the return in reverse.

    n the summer of 1959 when the "Gold Demo" program was wrapping up I worked in the dealer relations dept. Each dealer was to have ordered at least one of them but a large percentage of them did not order any at all. The pressure was on them to get their order for a Gold in ASAP. Feron is correct they could order any of the mentioned series offered also including the 701. It initially was an all SOS program but by summer our boss was adamate that to fulfill the obligation the dealer could order it quote "any damn way they wanted it". I do know that many dealers never did order one, some had ordered more than one and if any at all w/o SOS were ordered is unknown but it was possible to do.


    Ed Gooding (VA)    Posted 03-04-2011 at 10:07:56 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [Email]  
  • Some pics of Gold Demo tractors
  • Ed Gooding (VA)    Posted 03-04-2011 at 10:11:40 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [Email]  
  • Close-up pics of components of one Gold Demo
  • WayneIA    Posted 03-09-2011 at 22:58:15 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [Email]  
  • Re: Close-up pics of components of one Gold Demo
  • Since I worked at a Ford Tractor dealership from 1957-1964.I would like to add a few memories. The first years production did not have a filter in them.They came with the transmission exchange. Our first Gold 971 SOS(we had two) went to the farm and was back in 9 hrs.In fact it was into several times that summer,in our shop,so when the transsmission exchange came this particular transmission was not changed as all the updates were in it by that time . We exchanged 5. I was not aware of any gold tractors factory produced with a Elenco front wheel drive.

    awhtx    Posted 03-10-2011 at 21:00:52 [URL] [DELETE]        [Reply] [No Email]  
  • Re: Close-up pics of components of one Gold Demo
  • I doubt there were any factory Elenco conversions- every one of them was done in the field. That's not to say that a Ford Tractor dealer could not have bought a tractor from the factory and done the Elenco conversion before he ever put it on the showroom floor. And if he did add it to a Gold Demo it would make sense that he would have painted all of the conversion pieces gold to match the rest of the tractor.

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