Evergreen Farms, Franklin, Illinois 62638
General Motors may have made one of their worst mistakes when
under W. Durant, then General Motors president, they started the
Samson tractor business. It is estimated they lost $33,000,000
between 1917 and 1926 on this tractor venture. Walter P. Chrysler
was at that time in charge of the Buick division of General Motors
and it is said that he and Durant fell out over this tractor
fiasco. Chrysler of course went on to head his own company.
It seems that General Motors, under Mr. Durant, wanted to
compete with Henry Ford and his highly successful Fordson tractor
of that era. History relates that in 1917 Durant, with his own
funds, bought stock in the Samson Sieve-Grip Tractor Co. of
Stockton, California. Later, in 1918, General Motors directors
agreed to buy his stock in Samson. Samson was at that time building
a tricycle type, heavy one cylinder low slung tractor for orchard
work in California. It remains a mystery why Durant wanted the
Samson companymaybe patents. After acquisition of the Samson
company production was transferred to Pontiac, Michigan where the
one and two cylinder Sieve-Grip was manufactured.
At this time, the new model ‘M’ was being designed by
General Motors. This tractor was to have a Mason engine, similar to
ones used in G-M trucks. It is said that the Model ‘M’ was
designed to overcome one of Fordson’s problems, that of rearing
up and turning over, often with fatal results. In 1918, the
Janesville Machine Co., Janesville, Wisconsin was purchased. This
company manufactured farm implements and was merged with Samson to
form Samson Tractor Co. division of G-M.
Production of the Model ‘M’ started in May, 1919 with a
schedule of 10 units per day. At this time the Sieve-Grip was
phased out of the line. G-M had said that they would sell the
Samson for $650 but found they could not make a profit at this
price. The price was raised and then it was found that it was not
competitively priced to sell against Fordson.
Samson also intended to manufacture a second tractor, namely the
Model ‘D’; also known as the Iron Horse. This tractor was
intended for the smaller farm built to replace a team of horses.
Speaking of horses, the Iron Horse was to be driven with a pair of
reins ‘ala horse’. My literature shows it hooked to most
anything that a team could pull. The Model ‘D’ was a
four-wheel drive and through a series of belts, it steered much
like a crawler. It was a small tractor, powered by a Chevrolet 490
engine. The original intent was to produce 10,000 a year but
history has it that maybe 100 were built and supposedly these were
all recalled. There was much trouble with the transmission belt
set-up and it really didn’t prove too successful. Production
was to start in the spring of 1920 but never really got started.
Samson was written off by G-M in 1923. The Janesville plant was
transferred to Chevrolet.
The Samson Model ‘D’ that we own is in very good shape
but had several parts missing when we purchased it from a junk
dealer in White Hall, Illinois. Through the efforts of Mr. Eldon
Coates of Zwingle, Iowa, we have most of the missing parts replaced
and have high hopes of making it run some day soon. Incidentally,
the intended price of this tractor was advertised at $450.00
Mr. Rees used as sources for this article a 1920 Samson
catalogue and ‘The Great Tractor Debacle’ by Robert Lienert
which appeared in Automotive News, September 16, 1983.
