A Fordson Model F tractor is displayed at a museum in Tsumagoi, Gunma Prefecture.
GUNMA, May 3 – A Fordson Model F, the world’s oldest mass-produced tractor model, found in the village of Tsumagoi in Gunma Prefecture is attracting people’s attention after a local folk museum confirmed it to be the oldest existing tractor of the kind in Japan.
The tractor is owned by Kenji Kaneko, 73, a resident of Tsumagoi who repairs and sells tractors. Kaneko obtained it roughly 30 years ago from a bereaved family of a rancher in Shizuoka Prefecture.
The 20-horsepower tractor had been sold at about 10 million yen in today’s value. Although it was rusted and didn’t run when he got it, Kaneko disassembled it, put it back into shape and repainted its body white and iron wheels blue.
The folk museum organized a project to display the tractor in commemoration of the village becoming the top cabbage producer for summer and fall for 50 consecutive years in 2020.
The museum found out that the serial number of a carburetor on Kaneko’s tractor indicates the tractor is older than the Fordson Model F in Kamifurano, Hokkaido, which had been believed to be the oldest of the five such models existing in Japan.
“I may be able to start its engine if I have a horseshoe-shaped generator which had been used in old buses,” Kaneko said. “Since I put it back into shape, I want to make it run.”
The tractor was displayed at the museum until May 5.