TRACTOR PAINT COLOR HISTORY
Allis Chalmers
According to history, Harry Merritt, Tractor Division Manager, was visiting California in the late 20s and saw acre upon acre of blooming wild poppies. He could see orange for miles. Harry brought some poppies back to Milwaukee and had the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company try to match the color. Merritt wanted his tractors painted poppy orange.
Allis Chalmers made a series of color tests with different backgrounds. The Persian Orange color was adopted in 1928. The 1929 model U was the first of a long line of tractors to have the Persian Orange paint.
Case
Case restyled their whole range of tractors in 1939, even the color changed from gray to a Flambeau Red.
The beginning of the Flambeau Desert Sunset Era started with the 400 series tractors( 1955-1957). W. G. Thompson, plant manager, liked the Flambeau Red chassis and the cream / yellow sheet metal. He commented that it looked like a desert sunset and the name stuck. The color change was so successful that the 300 and 600 model tractors also adopted this same color scheme. Case used this color scheme for all agricultural and utility products until 1974.
Caterpillar
In 1931, an inner-office memo read,“ Beginning Monday, December 7th, all Caterpillar tractors and all Caterpillar road machines shipped from the factories will be painted Hi-Way Yellow. Trademarks and trimmings are black.” The story goes that a committee studied the color matter extensively, and decided on orange with black and told the Manufacturing Department that this was what they wanted. The Manufacturing Department refused, so the committee suggested aluminum. The Manufacturing Department tried aluminum and had a lot of trouble, so that was also refused. The committee then said yellow. It was tried, was a success, and became known as Caterpillar Yellow.
Cockshutt
Red ones or Green ones? It was Cockshutt’ s intention that the Oliver green tractors be shipped to the Brantford plant and reshot with Cockshutt Red with yellow detailing. Cockshutt literature for these Oliver-built tractors depicts them in green with red detailing throughout the 1930s. The red with yellow Cockshutt paint job was not depicted until a 1940 March brochure. The maple leaf decal appeared in the early 1940s with the Model 60 debut.
Empire
Red was the standard when they came from the factory, although several have been found that are yellow. These were probably painted at a distributor location.
Ferguson
Plans for the Ferguson tractor were drawn up during 1932. The tractor was ready by 1933, and was painted black at Ferguson’ s suggestion to reflect its simplicity. It was dubbed as the Ferguson Black Tractor.
The Ferguson Type A was painted Battleship Gray. Ferguson had agreed that black was a little too austere, but
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