page_title: Ford N-series tractor
section_title: Development of the Ford-Ferguson tractors
hierarchical_section_title: Ford N-series tractor / Development of the Ford-Ferguson tractors
caption_attribution_description: English: A magazine article showing and describing Harry Ferguson's tractor hitch development status as of 1922. It is a fully mechanical version with a depth wheel (small wheel that sets the plow depth) and is truly a three-point hitch, although it is not of the hydraulic type. The hydraulic type would be patented in 1926. The hitch is shown mounted on a Fordson tractor. In 1938, Ferguson would finally strike an agreement with Henry Ford to put Ferguson hitches on Ford tractors at the factory—something he had first attempted in 1920 and 1921 at Cork and Dearborn.
context_page_description: The Ford N-series tractors were a line of farm tractors produced by Ford between 1939 and 1952, spanning the 9N, 2N, and 8N models.
  The 9N was the first American-made production-model tractor to incorporate Harry Ferguson's three-point hitch system, a design still used on most modern tractors today. It was released in October 1939. The 2N, introduced in 1942, was the 9N with some improved details. The 8N, which debuted in July 1947, was a largely new machine featuring more power and an improved transmission. By some measures the 8N became the most popular farm tractor of all time in North America. Over 530,000 units of 8N were sold worldwide; the Fordson Model F had sold over 650,000 units worldwide, but in North American sales the 8N surpassed it in popular acclaim and units sold.
context_section_description: The first genuine Ford tractor was called the Fordson because a misleading Ford brand not related to Henry Ford was squatting on the Ford name at the time (Ford Tractor Company). The Fordson was a tremendous success in North America and Europe from 1917 to 1928. Ford of the U.S. left the tractor business in 1928. Ford Ltd of Britain continued to thrive with the Fordson from 1928 onward. Some British Fordsons were imported to the U.S. during the following decade. Henry Ford continued tractor R&D in the U.S. after 1928. During the 1930s, experiments were made at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan and Richmond Plantation, Georgia facilities, creating prototypes of row-crop tricycle Fordsons, V8-powered tractors, one-wheel-drive tractors, and other ideas. But Henry Ford waited to reenter the market, planning to have the right new tractor at the right time to achieve a market-changing success.
  In Ireland, businessman Harry Ferguson had been developing and selling various improved hitches, implements, and tractors since the 1910s. His first tractors were adapted from Model T cars. In 1920 and 1921 he gave demonstrations at Cork and Dearborn of his hitches and implements as aftermarket attachments to Fordson tractors. The hitches were mechanical at the time. By 1926, he and a team of longtime colleagues (including Willie Sands and Archie Greer) had developed a good hydraulic three-point hitch. Ferguson put such hitches on Fordsons throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. In the mid-1930s, he had David Brown Ltd build Ferguson-brand tractors with his hitches and implements. In 1938, Eber Sherman, importer of Fordsons from England to the United States and a friend of both Ford and Ferguson, arranged to have Ferguson demonstrate his tractor for Henry Ford.  In October 1938 the Ferguson tractor was put through a demonstration before Ford and his engineers. It was light in weight relative to its power, which impressed Ford. Ferguson's successful tractor demonstration led to a handshake agreement with Ford in 1938, whereby Ford would manufacture tractors using the Ferguson three-point hitch system.
  Ford Motor Company invested $12 million in tooling to finance Ferguson's new distribution company. The investment resulted in the production of the 9N tractor which was introduced on June 29, 1939. It was officially called a "Ford tractor with the Ferguson system", although the name Ford-Ferguson was widely used. It sold for $585 including rubber tires, power take-off, Ferguson hydraulics, an electric starter, generator, and battery; lights were optional. Ford's 9N further improved the cantankerous Model F by updating the ignition with a distributor and coil. An innovative system of tire mounts for the rear wheels and versatile axle mounts for the fronts enabled farmers to accommodate any width row-crop work they needed. The 9N weighed 2340 pounds and had 13 drawbar horsepower, which could pull a two-bottom plow. It was designed to be safe, quiet and easy to operate. Ford once said "Our competition is the horse."; the 9N was intended for farmers who were not mechanically minded.
  An immediate success, the 9N's configuration became an industry standard, which was followed by other tractor manufacturers for fifteen years. Henry Ford passed leadership of his company to grandson Henry Ford II in 1945. By 1946, the younger Ford discovered that, despite its success, the Model N lost Ford Motor Company over $25 million in six years. He reacted by forming Dearborn Motors in November 1946, which took over tractor distribution from Ferguson. Ford informed Ferguson that after July 1947 they would no longer supply tractors to his company. Ferguson sued Henry Ford II, Dearborn Motors and Ford Motor Company and others for $251 million in damages on the basis of patent infringements and conspiracy to monopolize the farm tractor business. Ford Motor Company claimed the patents had already expired by the time of Dearborn Motors' incorporation. Approximately 750,000 9Ns were built, and it was estimated in 2001 that nearly half of these were still in regular use.
  Harry F
caption: A magazine article showing and describing Harry Ferguson's tractor hitch development status as of 1922. The hitch is shown as an aftermarket attachment mounted on a Fordson tractor. It is a fully mechanical version with a depth wheel (small wheel that sets the plow depth).
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