The LTX Tractor Book – Why do it ?
David Walker
I have recently been asked for my reason for writing a book on a tractor that never went into production, and has been effectively dead and buried for seventy years? Maybe, there was something of an incentive, in that the Ferguson LTX has assumed almost mythical status, in the eyes of many enthusiasts of the Ferguson marque?
One of the problems relating to what might be referred to this mythical story, and the LTX story is definitely one of these, is that on many occasions, various aspects of the story, blurred by time, become believed as factually accurate, but if untrue, are very difficult to dislodge.
For those who don’t know me, my background is that I joined Massey-Ferguson in 1966, as a technical author, producing the instruction books and workshop manuals, before becoming a service engineer and after that, a service manager, in both the UK and Europe.
As a former employee of Massey-Ferguson, albeit some time after the demise of the LTX project, I was fortunate enough to be in frequent touch with a number of people who were involved with the LTX project. I can recall asking them about what made its short life and demise such an important topic, even years afterwards and how its demise was such a blow to them. Even more interesting was talking about the features that made it the potential worldbeater it could have been, if it had continued.
I suppose one of the other incentives that helped drive the project, other than my seemingly inexhaustible interest in engineering history, is, that ironically, when the LTX project began, I was actually living in Coventry, in Maudslay Road, just opposite what was later the home of the Massey-Ferguson Engineering Department, so only a few hundred yards from where the LTX tractors were assembled. Also, it was the place where the last LTX prototype was taken, for scrapping – an act of what many now mostly see as wanton vandalism, but perhaps understandable at the time, as the book explains.
When it came to writing the book, one of the most difficult aspects to address was trying to produce a fair and unbiased account of the many events in its short history. This was far from easy when you are also an enthusiast for the product!
The basic problem was, that you could very easily take sides and produce a onesided account, praising all the good features and ignoring the bad, without giving the other side of the story a fair hearing. Suffice to say, this ‘warts and all’ scenario does not always make for comfortable reading, but is, at least, as near the truth as can be established.
Another side of the story, which has received little attention on this side of the Atlantic, is what was happening in the Harry Ferguson Engineering Department in Detroit, because a major aspect of the LTX project was to have the tractor in production both at Banner Lane and in Detroit.
In fact, I received a huge amount of help from the USA, from Gary Heffner, the editor of the Legacy Quarterly magazine and Bob Sybrandy, both enabling a much more balanced view of the project.
One aspect of the book which I hope is one of its merits, is the fairly constant references to many people, some directly involved and some as outsiders, but all who I considered to be there and able to make a contribution to the story. Having worked in several industries, I have found that there is often an aspect not always appreciated, and this is the interconnected work of the vast number of people, in many different departments, without whose input there would be no product.
What became an almost compellingly magnetic aspect of the story was how complicated and convoluted a story it was, because there seemed to be ever more intrigue, as more and more information came to light, with so many interlinked, yet often opposing factors muddying the waters.
For this reason, rightly or wrongly, I decided that simply listing the ongoing saga as a more or less chronological list was not really the way to illustrate the somewhat chaotic way that things actually occurred.
In passing, I must draw attention to the encouragement and help I received from the late Michael Thorne, for his help in providing some priceless documents and drawings, without which the book would have been more than somewhat lacking.
In closing this brief account of some of the aspects of how the book came to publication, whilst most of the input being my own, another great help has been journalist and editor Peter Simpson, for his help and advice with getting the book to the point of publication.
To add a final twist to my involvement with the LTX project, I can claim to having been in the Service Department office at Banner Lane, when the call came through about the clutch failure of the last survivor. If I had only known then… AS they say, hindsight remains the most precise science known to mankind.
David Walker: published in Club Journal no.108 Spring 2024
