40 N. Main Street Fairport, New York 14450
This article is about the life of the 1928 Farmall Regular. Here
are some pictures of it before and after.
I was at an older gentleman farmer’s barn about one year
ago. He explained he had some F-12 tractors for sale. As I scanned
the rear corner of the barn, I saw this large, unstyled tractor and
asked what it was. He, Art Miller, age 79 of Penfield, New York,
said, ‘Oh, that’s an F-20 Farmall.’
‘Oh really? How much is it?’
‘It’s not for sale. I want to sell these F-12s.’
‘I know, but I think I would like to buy the F-20
instead.’
‘Gee whiz,’ Art said, ‘I have had that tractor since
1929 and I don’t want to sell it. Over the years I’ve
farmed these 80 acres with a double bottom plow, drag and Ontario
grain drill. I have rebuilt, repainted, changed it from steel to
rubber, and have not started it in 20 years. I remember putting an
overdrive and a Hysler Hop-up kit on it in the 1950s to develop
more power. I thought to myself, ‘Oh, what a great pull
tractor.’
Again, I said, ‘Art, are you sure you won’t sell me that
tractor?’
‘Give me your phone number,’ he replied. ‘I’ll
get it out of the barn and start it so you can see it run.’
At that point, I knew I was going somewhere.
About two weeks lapsed, and Art called to say he had the F-20
running and to come and see it. I was there in a heartbeat. I heard
it run, we discussed price, and I drove it 10 miles to my house in
about two hours. We started to do tractor pulls at that point, as
you can see in the small photo, before doing any work on it. We
took a few ribbons with it and had a lot of fun doing it until the
motor blew up from over-reving the engine. One thing we learned was
that the tractor was a 1928 Farmall Regular. The tractor has been
fully rebuilt from the inside out, and now awaits the 1995 tractor
pulling season. By the way Art Miller goes to all the tractor pulls
with us. What a great friend he has become! I would like to share
this with other readers of GEM.
