Photo: Mecum
Way back in the early 1930s, at a time when the European auto industry was beginning to spawn the engineers that would forever shape our world, Ferdinand Porsche was hard at work trying to come up with a true people’s car for Europeans. At the same time, he was working on a motorized farmer’s tool.
Five years before the onset of the war, Porsche managed to come up with three working tractor prototypes, built around a revolutionary diesel engine. Cooled by air, the drivetrain was modular, and it could be turned into a one-, two-, three- or four-cylinder powerplant, depending on the intended use of the tractor.
Then Hitler, the man who asked for the creation of the Beetle, invaded Poland and all hell brake loose, stopping everything in their tracks, including the development of a Porsche tractor.
As fate would have it, after the war ended the carmaker was not allowed to make these vehicles itself because of German laws, and had to license the tractor to partner companies.
Even so, sometime in 1952 Porsche tractors started roaming agricultural fields across Europe. More and more of them were made every year until 1963 when production ceased. By that time, over 100,000 units had been produced.
And one of them, restored to former shining glory, just got sold at the Mecum Kissimmee auction in Florida.
The Porsche Model 108 Junior tractor pictured in a gallery above has been obviously restored, but it retains all the hardware it was fitted with when it was manufactured in 1959. That includes the stock, tiny 822cc engine with 14 hp on tap, and the 3-speed manual transmission – the two are linked to each other by a hydraulic coupling.
Whoever purchased this tractor also got his hands on the original owner’s manual and the advertising brochures edited decades ago by the machine’s makers.
Then Hitler, the man who asked for the creation of the Beetle, invaded Poland and all hell brake loose, stopping everything in their tracks, including the development of a Porsche tractor.
As fate would have it, after the war ended the carmaker was not allowed to make these vehicles itself because of German laws, and had to license the tractor to partner companies.
Even so, sometime in 1952 Porsche tractors started roaming agricultural fields across Europe. More and more of them were made every year until 1963 when production ceased. By that time, over 100,000 units had been produced.
And one of them, restored to former shining glory, just got sold at the Mecum Kissimmee auction in Florida.
The Porsche Model 108 Junior tractor pictured in a gallery above has been obviously restored, but it retains all the hardware it was fitted with when it was manufactured in 1959. That includes the stock, tiny 822cc engine with 14 hp on tap, and the 3-speed manual transmission – the two are linked to each other by a hydraulic coupling.
Whoever purchased this tractor also got his hands on the original owner’s manual and the advertising brochures edited decades ago by the machine’s makers.
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