county tractor ( I want one)

[codlasher]

openspaceman. The base 5000 Ford was a superb simple piece of engineering! The men at County were well ahead of their time too.

codlasher

[18 stoner]

Anyone know of the demise of "county"?

 

I mean, we all love to see them, and I realise the mass producers replaced them, but when did they stop producing? Is the company still alive, possibly doing other stuff?

 

 

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[codlasher]

Here's a couple of pics of my old machines. These pictures were taken ten years ago. The Wartsila crane is now a Botex and it had a little bit extra reach but in all honesty the Wartsila was a superb piece of machinery, only written off by the engineer as Chieftain Forge no longer carried the spares.

The other machine was originally Jim Crawford's and was fitted with a Cooks ten ton winch and Bomford loader. This was a 1960's County, with a chequered history but still did a days work.

codlasher

[openspaceman]

openspaceman. The base 5000 Ford was a superb simple piece of engineering! The men at County were well ahead of their time too.

codlasher

 

Yes they were cheap to run and frugal on fuel, I'd reckon on extract and load two artics on about 25 litres of gasoil.

 

Remember the first wheeled ones derived from the crawler and were skid steer only.

 

In my early days I used to exchange letters with one of the Tapp family and spoke and visited Dave Gittins when he bought the firm (out of receivership??)

 

At the same time FC were developing an all hydrostatic articulated skidder which Roadless put in production, its manoeuvrability seemed a bit pointless.

 

I was looking to hybridising a hydrostatic drive to give some of the attributes of a forwarder and enhance the skid steering with the aim of also using it for mulching.

 

On the braking: the basic machine weighed in at 4.5 tonnes and the brakes were fine, Tom Osborn had some with goose neck dumpers which imposed a lot more weight so he equipped some with external disk brakes. I always fancied this conversion as my 1124 has nearly a tonne of grapple loader on the roof, half a tonne of bomford blade on the front and 0.6 tonne of double drum winch. This can be a big problem in high traction conditions if you don't remember to stay in no lower than third.

[rovers90]

Anyone know of the demise of "county"?

 

I mean, we all love to see them, and I realise the mass producers replaced them, but when did they stop producing? Is the company still alive, possibly doing other stuff?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

 

County Tractors were taken over in 1987 by the Benson Group, who among other holdings were the importer for Valmet. It is believed they only produced a further 150 tractors before production ceased in 1990. Apparently one of the biggest problems was sourcing cabs to comply with UK legislation and a number of the vehicles were finished in Bensons red livery rather than the traditional County blue.

 

Later, in the mid 90s, SEM Engineering of Essex aquired the rights from Benson and managed to produce a number of tractors for export before going in to receivership in 1995. The full batch of 10 were finally completed in July 95 and exported to Canada, St Helena and the Falkands.

 

Ther is a good book available - County:4WD Pulling Power, worth seeking it out.

[openspaceman]

Apparently one of the biggest problems was sourcing cabs to comply with UK legislation and a number of the vehicles were finished in Bensons red livery rather than the traditional County blue.

 

County Commercial Cars were an old fashioned firm with an ethos before the era of "just in time" I suspect they held large stocks of parts and the later tractors built were only using up these parts rather than being new production.

[18 stoner]

County Tractors were taken over in 1987 by the Benson Group, who among other holdings were the importer for Valmet. It is believed they only produced a further 150 tractors before production ceased in 1990. Apparently one of the biggest problems was sourcing cabs to comply with UK legislation and a number of the vehicles were finished in Bensons red livery rather than the traditional County blue.

 

 

 

Later, in the mid 90s, SEM Engineering of Essex aquired the rights from Benson and managed to produce a number of tractors for export before going in to receivership in 1995. The full batch of 10 were finally completed in July 95 and exported to Canada, St Helena and the Falkands.

 

 

 

Ther is a good book available - County:4WD Pulling Power, worth seeking it out.

 

 

Interesting, thanks. It's always been a tractor that fascinated me. I've seen many, worked along side quite a few, but even to my own disbelief, never driven one!

 

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[fergusonforestry]

i'd kill for a good county highland bear!

[Stubby]

 

Ther is a good book available - County:4WD Pulling Power, worth seeking it out.

 

£ 7.99 on fleabay now .....

[beechwood]

Reluctantly I have a 1975 1164 with Highland Bear crane on it for sale.

£6k ONO

pm me for more details

 

 

You can't alway compete on price but you can on quality