 Here's a pic of the alpha and omega of the W-9 series. My W-9 is at ground level; a 650D is up on the trailer. The 650 is the great-grandson of the 9 and the last version of the basic design. That 650 is a horse at around 65 BHP. With its PS, live hydraulics and shaft, it would be a much more pleasant experience to wonk around on than my W-9. You need a lot of room to move these things around in--at least that's what the 9 needs. But heck, these things weren't built for jockeying hay wagons. They're more at home out in the Plains. We have guite a few Farmalls. When you spend time around anything, the shape, look and appearance get engrained in your mind. When I adopted the W-9 a couple of years agoan brought it home, its mass overwhelmed anything we owned except for maybe the 400. All our other stuff was narrow front row-crops--the Wheatland style tractor was just so foreign to us. Every once in a while even after two years, I'll catch my brother looking at the W-9 and muttering "...what a beast.." Despite the massiveness, the W-9 "looks right". It's well-proportioned and sits true and level with 16.9 x 34 rear tires on it. The only thing in my opinion that detracts from its look is the front axle. It appears to be a little undersized when viewed from the front--it doesn't have the overwhelming look of muscle that a JD Standard front axle has. On the other hand, it may have been IH's thinking that a massive front axle would detract from the rear axle weight bias. Don't know. One other thing that I need to add: I don't know if it was luck or just good design, but the W-9 is very well balanced when pulling a heavy load. There's good weight transfer to the rear axle. Whether it's from the hitch design, front/rear axle weight bias or both, that thing is one pullin' SOB.
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