New Massey Combines

[8850jd]

I read on this forum There were some guys looking to reposed a 9720/8590 with an 855 Cummins... I was just looking And wondering.. a class 7+ combine that only weights 27000? Were they successful with the repower... would make an amazing combine!!
I think if they could have got the 505 or 855 in that combine from the start they would have decimated the competition.

[munss1]

The current series of rotary machines were developed by a company called New Idea, and shelved for a number of years untill AGCO to over MF and associate companies, and then decided to devolop and market the MF8680 and the bigger machines, ok some of the WFE 9700 components do cross over, but the biggest change was the hydrostatic rotor. Cheers from a former MF &WFE sales person from the 9700 &9720 era.

Originally Posted by 750guy

Does anyone really know for sure? I have read so many stories on here and other sites about how much of the current rotor is MF and how much is WFE. Read about MF buying it for a dollar, read about MF engineers helping the WFE engineers design the combine and being paid by the canadian government. Also read WFE owed MF money for engines so MF got the combines for cheap. Find it a bit of a coincidence that the later Whites began running Perkins engines? So many stories. Hard to imagine MF did not have some input? Nothing against WFE but I would sure like to know how much MF is in the product as I get tired of listening to people tell me the MF is just a White and there is nothing MF about the machine other than the color. MF had some good ideas and good machines I would think they would have had a good handle on some rotor ideas. I read the farm magazine earlier with the pictures of the MF rotors so we know they had something just don't know exactly what.

[J.Hasert]

From my research for Oliver Heritage Magazine I have found that the biggest factor in WFE selling the 9720/9320 was Borg Warner. Borg Warner financed the dealer floor plan for TIC-WFE and the debt piled up up on TIC. In some ways it was a Enron type situation. TIC-WFE was showing sales of machines because Borg Warner was buying them. From that point though the machines were not selling into the farm market.

In early 1985 TIC owed Borg Warner a $28 million dollar interest payment. TIC had not made any payments to Borg Warner in a year. In the spring of 1985 Borg Warner was fed up and saw no future in the machinery industry as they watched International Harvester and Allis-Chalmers collapse. If big names like IH and AC fell Borg Warner so no future for WFE. Borg Warner advertised in the Wall Street Journal that there would be an auction of all WFE assets at the end of May 1985. As far as Borg Warner was concerned they wanted out of WFE and wanted as much money as they could recover. Borg Warner did not care if one buyer was found or if they auctioned off every item at WFE down to the last pencil individually. Everything from patents, to plant signs to company office furniture was for sale. For a farm equipment history buff this video is interesting as Massey tip toes around buying WFE's combine. Massey was doing what it needed to do to bring its customers into the rotary age.

WFE and White Farm Canada were held together as a network by TIC but were also separate business entities because of the bankruptcy of White Motors in 1980. White Farm Canada owed the majority of its money to the Canadian Government for its investment in the Axial combine.

A law suit in Kansas from 9700 combine owners led to an injunction in Federal court that stopped the May 1985 auction of WFE. TIC was so short on cash they could not cover warranties and I think this was what caused the law suit.

Borg Warner was in a hurry to sell off WFE and moved to have another auction in the summer of 1985. Pressures from the Canadian Government to keep manufacturing in Brandtford and Borg Warner wanting cash lead to the quick sale of the WFE Axial design to Massey Ferguson. The interesting thing is that Borg Warner was in such a hurry to sell the 8920 conventional combine was lost in the shuffle. The 9320 Axial was the combine of the future and the tooling for the 8920 was placed out in the plant yard to make room for the early 9320 production. The main value and debt of White Farm Canada was the Axial design. With Axial design was sold WFE closed up shop on combine production. Borg Warner wanted out and the 8920 tooling was sold for scrap.

The interesting irony of the WFE combine sale is that a few years later after tractor production of WHITE Tractors was moved from Charles City, IA to Coldwater, OH the former Oliver tractor plant was used in its last days to manufacture parts for the WHITE conventional combines.

I gathered my information from the WHITE Dealer Council minutes from a binder I have of each of the meetings held from 1980-1985. This binder is a treasure trove of information. The meetings between Borg Warner executives and WFE dealers was most unpleasant in 1985. If it had not been for Allied buying WFE in November 1985 from what I have read in the minutes the rest of WFE would have met the same fate as the Axial combine. WFE would have been chopped up in parts and spread out across the industry with other parts being scraped.

One other interesting item I will share is a video I have on VHS from Massey Ferguson on the "new" 8560. The video gives a history of combines including early horse drawn machines in the late 1800's, the development of the Massey Harris Clipper combine as the first mass produced self propelled combine up to the Massey Ferguson 865. The video then talks about the amazing new 8560 that "engineers" had been working on since the 1950's. The video then talks about how "Massey engineering" went from concept to the field in the 1970's for testing. I am 99% certain the video shows prototype pictures of the WHITE 9700 being tested in wheat and corn. The machine does not have decals. The interesting thing is that the video makes no mention of WHITE or WFE. Massey marketing takes full credit for for the 8560 like it was just the next step in a long line of engineering from Massey.

In the end the Axial design has had many twists and turns since its introduction in 1979. I think AGCO has really strengthened the future of the Massey Ferguson combine and the brand.

[mostlygreen]

Originally Posted by J.Hasert

From my research for Oliver Heritage Magazine I have found that the biggest factor in WFE selling the 9720/9320 was Borg Warner. Borg Warner financed the dealer floor plan for TIC-WFE and the debt piled up up on TIC. In some ways it was a Enron type situation. TIC-WFE was showing sales of machines because Borg Warner was buying them. From that point though the machines were not selling into the farm market.

In early 1985 TIC owed Borg Warner a $28 million dollar interest payment. TIC had not made any payments to Borg Warner in a year. In the spring of 1985 Borg Warner was fed up and saw no future in the machinery industry as they watched International Harvester and Allis-Chalmers collapse. If big names like IH and AC fell Borg Warner so no future for WFE. Borg Warner advertised in the Wall Street Journal that there would be an auction of all WFE assets at the end of May 1985. As far as Borg Warner was concerned they wanted out of WFE and wanted as much money as they could recover. Borg Warner did not care if one buyer was found or if they auctioned off every item at WFE down to the last pencil individually. Everything from patents, to plant signs to company office furniture was for sale.

WFE and White Farm Canada were held together as a network by TIC but were also separate business entities because of the bankruptcy of White Motors in 1980. White Farm Canada owed the majority of its money to the Canadian Government for its investment in the Axial combine.

A law suit in Kansas from 9700 combine owners led to an injunction in Federal court that stopped the May 1985 auction of WFE. TIC was so short on cash they could not cover warranties and I think this was what caused the law suit.

Borg Warner was in a hurry to sell off WFE and moved to have another auction in the summer of 1985. Pressures from the Canadian Government to keep manufacturing in Brandtford and Borg Warner wanting cash lead to the quick sale of the WFE Axial design to Massey Ferguson. The interesting thing is that Borg Warner was in such a hurry to sell the 8920 conventional combine was lost in the shuffle. The 9320 Axial was the combine of the future and the tooling for the 8920 was placed out in the plant yard to make room for the early 9320 production. The main value and debt of White Farm Canada was the Axial design. With Axial design was sold WFE closed up shop on combine production. Borg Warner wanted out and the 8920 tooling was sold for scrap.

The interesting irony of the WFE combine sale is that a few years later after tractor production of WHITE Tractors was moved from Charles City, IA to Coldwater, OH the former Oliver tractor plant was used in its last days to manufacture parts for the WHITE conventional combines.

I gathered my information from the WHITE Dealer Council minutes from a binder I have of each of the meetings held from 1980-1985. This binder is a treasure trove of information. The meetings between Borg Warner executives and WFE dealers was most unpleasant in 1985. If it had not been for Allied buying WFE in November 1985 from what I have read in the minutes the rest of WFE would have met the same fate as the Axial combine. WFE would have been chopped up in parts and spread out across the industry with other parts being scraped.

One other interesting item I will share is a video I have on VHS from Massey Ferguson on the "new" 8560. The video gives a history of combines including early horse drawn machines in the late 1800's, the development of the Massey Harris Clipper combine as the first mass produced self propelled combine up to the Massey Ferguson 865. The video then talks about the amazing new 8560 that "engineers" had been working on since the 1950's. The video then talks about how "Massey engineering" went from concept to the field in the 1970's for testing. I am 99% certain the video shows prototype pictures of the WHITE 9700 being tested in wheat and corn. The machine does not have decals. The interesting thing is that the video makes no mention of WHITE or WFE. Massey marketing takes full credit for for the 8560 like it was just the next step in a long line of engineering from Massey.

In the end the Axial design has had many twists and turns since its introduction in 1979. I think AGCO has really strengthened the future of the Massey Ferguson combine and the brand.

A little off topic from what you've mentioned, but I remember Borg-Warner selling off completed 8720's and 8920's to (primarily) the Canadian dealer network at huge discounts. Typically, you could buy a new machine for a little more than half of what they typically sold for. I'm not sure if there were any warranties with the machines, but I remember our local dealer saying that there was NO floor plan on these units, strictly cash-and-carry, and that the completed 9720's were NOT included in the liquidation, though White dealers had a one year threshold to sell 9720's before the marketing went exclusively to Massey Ferguson dealers.

Much like Borg-Warner, I believe the Canadian government walked away from any hopes of reviving White Farm. Perhaps there mindset was that the jobs would be going from one end of Brantford (the White factory) to the other end of Brantford (the Massey plant). I was at the White Factory auction and I can attest that much of the jigs, fixtures and tooling for the 8720/8920 was sold for scrap, along with an interesting prototype combine labelled the "9500" which was sold for parts/scrap to the White dealer in Wallenstein. Since this machine shared many power train components with the 8920 conventional, it had some value to it. The machine appeared to be very similar to the 9320.

[quappelle]

The Massey 21 was the mass produced self propelled. The Clipper was a straight through 6 foot pull type and the worse piece of junk this farm ever saw. Dad bought it new and it was scrap after two years. There's some question about the IHC 123 beating out the Massey 21 for the first mass produced SP title.

[FarmerBoy9870]

Originally Posted by redhat

Basically, that is why Massey ended up "buying" White. Government owned majority shares in Massey and pulled the plug on White as the new "9320" rotor machine was going down the production line to help save their investment in Massey. If White had the 9320 hit the market Massey was toast permanently and they knew it. Once that happened Brantford closed down, Massey went to Varity and from Varity to Agco and the rest we all know.
The White rotor started development in 1952 with Cockshutt, the rotor was mounted vertically and the crop was fed in the top and let gravity do the rest. Have seen video of the unit running, i am not old enough to have actually been there.

Do you know were we could find that video??

[FarmerBoy9870]

Do you know were I could fincd that video on the "new" 8560??