Tractors

The initiator of the mass production of classic tractors is the extremely capable American businessman Henry Ford, who became famous all over the world mainly for the line production of cars. Because the shareholders of Ford Motor Company did not agree with the experiments with agricultural machinery, he and his son founded Ford and Son, which, on the other hand, focused entirely on the design and sale of tractors. Fordson tractors have dominated the United States since 1908 and began to expand into Great Britain in 1917. After the end of the First World War, tractors began to be imported on a large scale throughout Europe, including Czechoslovakia.

Nine years before the beginning of the twentieth century, two of Canada's most important agricultural machinery companies merged to form the largest agricultural machinery manufacturer in the British Empire (then controlling one-fifth of the world), Massey-Harris Company Limited. The company, which controlled the Johnston Harvest Company in 1910, was also a pioneer in the production of four-wheel tractors.

The American company of Chicago was founded by a man with a remarkable life named Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809–1884). His later successors, a merger in a corporation called INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER, introduced their first tractor in 1906. Gradually, a whole series of types of tractors followed, which were referred to mainly as McCornic and Farmal (or International) and which, thanks to quality period advertising, sold well not only in the USA but also in Europe.

A very important manufacturer of tractors in Europe was the German company Heinrich Lanz AG based in Mannheim in the Rhineland, which has a very deep industrial tradition. In its production program from 1921 to 1956, several successful series of massive Lanz Bulldog tractors were produced, which were characterized by high traction and relatively low fuel consumption compared to tractors imported from North America.

The original company in German Silesia Linke - Hofmann - Busch (LHB) Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) was established in 1839 by the gradual merging of companies, which were mainly engaged in the production of railway wagons and locomotives. Only in 1928, the company Busch took over the production of internal combustion engines and buses. Under pressure from the army, the development and subsequent production of crawler tractors began in 1925. Shortly after the Nazis came to power, part of LHB, including the entire tractor section, was bought to serve as the basis for the new FAMO ("Fahrzeug und Motoren Werke") production plant, which was established in 1935. The company also produced road tractors shortly after its founding. , one of which has been preserved in our exhibition. 

Among the popular tractors of the First Republic in Czechoslovakia were those manufactured by the Svoboda company in Kosmonosy near Mladá Boleslav. This company was founded by a very remarkable personality. This was Václav Svoboda, born in 1882, who, after training as a locksmith, began working as a lathe operator in the then still small company Laurin a Klement. He read a lot in his free time. This led him to the idea of ​​building an aircraft engine. Even though he only had an old pedal lathe and free time in the evenings, he finally successfully implemented his idea. But the finished engine had to be tested somewhere. Coincidentally, the engine was tested at the farmer's yard, who immediately showed interest in buying it. The first satisfied customer was a decisive impulse for Svoboda to do business independently. From very humble beginnings, a major company focused on the production of stable engines and other machines needed for agriculture slowly grew. From 1934 he also started offering tractors. The first Svoboda tractors had only three wheels, but soon four-wheeled tractors followed. The successful development of the company was slowed by II. World War II, and shortly afterwards, for political reasons, came to a definitive end.

Tractors famous under this brand were developed in Mladá Boleslav in the company Laurin and Klement, which was bought in 1925 by the Škoda plant in Pilsen. A year later, the first mass-produced tractor in Czechoslovakia, the HT 30, began to be assembled in Pilsen. It was a total of 750 pieces, many of which were exported abroad. At the same time, the HT 18 type was also produced in Pilsen. The production of the last series was transferred to Mladá Boleslav, where the last pieces were assembled in 1936. After that, more modern types began to be produced, which are not part of our exhibition. However, we have one of the very popular post-war tractors of the Škoda 30 type, manufactured in main operation from 1946 to 1951. A few years later, however, these tractors were assembled from spare parts at the Machine Tractor Station in Libice nad Cidlinou.

In 1929, serial production of a Wikov 32 type tractor began in Prostějov, Wikov, that two years earlier brought to Moravia a bronze medal from a competition organized by the Ministry of Agriculture. The tractor that is in our exposition is type Wikov 35 and it is interesting that it does not differ from the previous one. The reason for naming it is purely advertising. Because while the former designation 32 indicated the average power in horsepower, the later designation 35 indicated the maximum power.

Not far from Prague in town Slaný, at the end of the 1920s, Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk (ČKD) began producing a universal tractor of the Praga AT 25 type. It was undoubtedly the most successful tractor, which was manufactured under the Praga brand.

Today, the most famous manufacturer of tractors in the Czech Republic was established in 1946. Its name is a combination of the initial letter Zbrojovka Brno Z (zet), to which was added the ending from the word traktor (or). The main impetus for the establishment of this company was the demand of the Czechoslovak state for mass production of cheap and easy-to-maintain tractors for the domestic and especially foreign market. Thus, in six months, the first Zetor 25 tractor was born in Mr. Musil's design workshop, which has been produced in a completely unimaginable amount in the Zetor company since 1946. Our museum shows a unique section of a tractor of this type, which originally served as a visual aid for teaching. This basic type of tractor also had several variants, according to the needs of the target customer. This is how the Zetor 25 K and Zetor 25 N were born, which are part of our exhibition. The demand of medium farmers for a weaker and cheaper tractor then led to the development of the Zetor 15 (with an output of only 15 horses), of which a total of 2215 drove out of the gates of Zetor from 1947 to 1949. and hop fields in 1960.