It’s become a rare thing these days to see used tractors more than a decade or two old sitting on a dealer’s lot. But Little Morden Service at Morden, Man., has one very notable exception to that trend. Sitting in its showroom is a freshly restored 1968 Versatile 145 tractor.
LMS has been a Versatile dealer for many years and when the chance to get this vintage machine as a trade-in came up, Abe Penner, co-owner and general manager, thought it might be a very unique opportunity.
“Our salesman came to me and said, do you want a 145 Versatile?” Penner explained. “I said I wasn’t sure, but I started thinking about it and thought it would be a cool piece to have.
“Our business goes back in our family back to 1987, but Little Morden Service started back in the ’50s. And we have a lot of history with Versatile. I thought if we could have an old 145 in our showroom with the legacy it brought to our business, that would be pretty cool.”
photo:
Dennis Friesen
But when it arrived, the 56-year-old tractor, despite being well cared for over the years, was showing its age. So the dealership asked one of its customers, Dennis Friesen, a local farmer who also operates a restoration business, to take on the project of bringing the 145 back to its original glory.
“We spent about 190 hours on it in total,” said Friesen. “That’s with four of us, my son and I and two of my workers.
“When we got it, it was in rough shape. It was rusty, but we sandblasted it, took the tires off the rims and tore the interior apart. We ended up finding a lot of rusted-out spots in the cab. The cab was probably the worst. We welded in a lot of sheet metal.”
photo:
Dennis Friesen
Remarkably, the original drivetrain has never seen any major repair work and is still in good working order.
“It was a fun project,” Friesen added. “We never did anything to engine, transmission or anything like that. That’s all original.”
photo:
Dennis Friesen
photo:
Dennis Friesen
Open-station model
“During the winter when we weren’t using it, it was always stored inside,” said Bill Ransom, the original owner of the tractor. “Our farm company bought it, Ransom Farms Ltd.”
When the tractor left the factory it was an open-station model, but the Ransoms added the after-market cab a couple of years later.
“We were a little short of money to buy one with a cab,” he said. “So we used it for a couple of years before we got the cab. And, boy, did that make a difference to the comfort.”
photo:
Scott Garvey
The 145 was the third Versatile the Ransom farm purchased. It also owned one of the very first models to come out of the Winnipeg factory, a model G100, which used a Chrysler V8 engine. The engine required major repairs in the first year, and that led to the tractor being replaced with a newer, larger model.
“We had two others (Versatiles) as well. The first one was a model G100. It had a gas engine and wasn’t a terribly satisfactory tractor. We traded it on a D118. We used it and then we bought this one in 1968.
“It was one of the bigger tractors at that time. We pulled a 32-foot cultivator with it. It had lots of power and a good range of working speeds with the transmission.”
The tractor stayed on the Ransom farm until about five years ago, when it was sold to another farmer in the Morden area, whose original intention was to restore it, but he ended up trading it to LMS.
photo:
Scott Garvey
‘Touch of class’
With the restored, shiny 145 now sitting inside the dealership showroom, Penner said it has attracted a lot of attention.
“We’ve had so many people walk in and share their stories,” he said. “Just to be able to visit with people about where we’ve come from (in farming) is so much fun. With social media it’s a small world, so we get to hear people commenting on it from all over.”
The tractor is in original condition, except for the cab interior, which is now a little more upscale than it was when it left the factory, with added upholstery.
photo:
Scott Garvey
“This fabric we bought, we got it overseas,” Friesen says. “When my wife showed it to me with the red stitching, it just called out to me. It gave it a touch of class. I know originally that’s not the way it was. I just wanted to do something a little bit different to spruce it up a bit.”
For now, the tractor will stay in its new home in the dealership showroom, but it may make a few trips out.
“We hope to use it in parades,” said Penner. “It’s great to have even at trade shows and farm shows to compare the old with the new and see how far we’ve actually come.”
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