The Massey Ferguson 1200 was a tractor that was claimed to be at the leading edge of design when launched in late 1971, being both 4WD and articulated.

What’s more, it was rated at over 100hp – a big deal back then.

None of these features were new, but being brought together in a single package and offered to UK and European farmers, was a significant shift in tractor design that might have been just too big a culture shock for many at the time.

MF 1200 with silage trailer — The Massey Ferguson 1200 is still an impressive tractor despite being more than 50- years-old

Yet, we must not get too carried away, for although the roots of the design are said to trace back to the mid-1960s, as part of Massey Fergusons DX design project initiated in 1961 in Finland, Valmet had already produced a 4WD machine based on a skid unit with another rear axle attached behind.

This tractor, known as the 363D, was based on the company’s 46hp 361D, and although the original tractor was an agricultural machine, the new model was aimed squarely at the forestry market, and came complete with a dozer blade and winch, as standard.

Valmet forestry tractor — The Valmet 363D was built as a forestry tractor, yet the concept was the same as the MF1200

Despite being intended for a different market, it had established itself as a factory built, skid unit derived 4X4, a year before the new Massey Ferguson DX range of standard machines was finally launched in 1965.

Yet, once the new Massey Ferguson tractors were out on the fields, it quickly became apparent that the demand for power was increasing rapidly.

While 35hp might have been quite adequate for farmers who had been brought up with horses, by the mid-1960s, that generation was fading and the next was demanding a lot more from the latest machines.

Big tractors, or prairie busters, were nothing new in the United States or on the steppes of Russia, as man claimed the soils for his new crops to feed an expanding population.

These vast tracts of land, managed as single units, were being catered for by equally large, and heavy, machines.

Condensing the diesel engine

The second World War had seen the internal combustion engine come into its own, steam was a thing of the past and diesel engines were becoming smaller and more compact, a trend that continues today.

What it meant in the 1950s and 1960s, was that smaller firms, such as Steiger, were starting to produce big tractors to supply these large farms with modern machinery, and they were not restricted by established design parameters, or a list of company parts that management insisted on them using.

The Massey Ferguson 1800 was a pure prairie tractor and is still around. This example came up for sale at Purple Wave Auctions, Kansas

Massey Ferguson’s response to these usurpers, was the development of three articulated tractors of its own – the 1800 at 210hp, the 1500 with 180hp and the much smaller European orientated 1200 at 105hp, all appeared in 1971, although the 1200 was not available until 1972.

The two big tractors were indeed mighty machines. Built at Des Moines, Iowa, they were powered by hefty V8 Caterpillar engines, the larger being the 10.4L Cat 3160 unit, and both weighed nearly 8t.

Over on this side of the Atlantic, ambitions were a little more modest. Although conforming to the same design concept, the 1200 was given a straight six Perkins unit of 105hp, and axles from the Massey Ferguson 178, a tractor of 73hp.

Massey Ferguson 1200 at rally — Despite being the baby brother of the trio the MF 1200 was still a big tractor

The operating weight was just over 5t, and it was built at MF’s industrial machinery plant in Manchester, rather than Banner Lane in Coventry.

A sum of parts

Another claim made for these tractors, is that they were the first to be built with a cab that was integrated into the design.

This is, once again, something that Valmet had already done with its 900 model in 1967, which was the creation of an industrial designer rather than agricultural engineer.

It might also be mentioned at this point, that in the same year the MF 1200 arrived on farms, Valmet launched its rigid 702, which, in turbocharged form, made 102hp and was available with 4WD.

The Valmet 702 was introduced the same year as the MF1200 and also offereded over 100hp, 4WD and an integrated cab, but in a conventional format

If the 1200 was not particularly ground breaking in terms of power or design concept, what did set it apart from its rivals in the UK and Ireland at the time, was the extra traction and agility afforded by the equal sized wheels and pivot steering.

At the time, Ford’s major offering was the 7000 – a workhorse of a machine, but at 89hp it just wasn’t in the same league.

Likewise, John Deere and International Harvester had 100+hp tractors available in America, but very few made their way across the ocean.

Those that did, tended to be 2WD without the optimum weight distribution of an articulated tractor such as the 1200, which further enhanced traction.

The John Deere 5020 was a typical muscle machine from the late 1960s. It had 154hp with dual wheels fitted to provide extra traction

British farmers were welded to the idea of 2WD tractors throughout the 1970s and up into the mid-1980s, which may well have been due to this American influence, over on the continent all wheel drive was much more prevalent.

Box shifting

When Anglo American companies are churning out thousands of copies of a handful of models, none with the complication of a driven front axle, while still making money on each, there is little incentive to change, so they didn’t, for far too long.

This ‘pile them high and sell them cheap’ approach left the MF1200 with little competition.

Certainly, companies like County Tractors were busy building on Ford skid units, its 1194 had equal sized wheels and even a six-cylinder engine of 100hp, but all the models were cumbersome and expensive.

County Tractor ploughing — County Tractors knew the value of equal sized 4WD, but they cost around twice as much as a 2WD equivalent

The big Massey stood out from the crowd, literally, and was a steady if not dramatic seller. It is claimed that only 2,500 were made, and then just 250 of the the upgraded 1250 model, before the type was finally discontinued in 1982.

It was not without its issues. The MF 1200 was, in effect, a scaled down American tractor and big American tractors are designed for pulling implements via a single hitch point.

MF 2658 — The 130hp MF 2685 from 1985 represented the new tractor type that displaced the MF 1200

European tractors are generally designed to work with mounted implements, so a three-point linkage had to be attached to the rear axle, and it was this that could cause problems over time.

The large mounted implements were often too much for the link arms, even though they were meant to be more robust than the standard items found on MF’s other tractors, and failures occurred.

Pushing at the envelope

Overall, it was an interesting attempt by a major tractor manufacturer to take design in a new direction and bring fresh thinking to the way that tractors are used on farms.

Massey Ferguson 185 4WD — Third party suppliers came up with kits to convert existing tractors to 4WD, although the weight distribution was not ideal

It was not alone in this, as several other companies were looking at machines with forward placed cabs, including the MB Trac from Mercedes and even the County Forward Control.

However, these were systems tractors, in that they were designed to carry a load, such as a sprayer, above the rear axle, and were not pure traction machines.

The 1200 remains the only significant attempt to make a fully capable articulated tractor in Britain, and while it achieved some success, rigid-framed tractors grew to equal it in power and manoeuvrability, while front-mounted implements alleviated the weight distribution advantage.

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