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The twins

R

rrlund

Well-known Member
The keeper of the Oliver 500 serial number registry wants to stop in today to look at my 500s. This is the first time I've had the two of them out at the same time.
a267118.jpg

a267119.jpg
 
nice and nice with the red-stripe in the background.

any history on why Oliver added the DavidBrown tractor to the line-up? were they looking at dropping the 550 or was it just a lower cost alternative or???
 
In all the research I've done on it,I still don't know. I don't know if it was initiated by Oliver or David Brown. I do know that DB had a dealer network in Canada and not in the US. It's assumed that they wanted to get them in to the US market and approached Oliver about selling them through Oliver dealers. They weren't much of an upgrade from a 550. They had a differential lock and the 550s didn't,but they had a two stage clutch instead of independent PTO.

One interesting thing I've come across,at least as I understand it. The David Browns were red with yellow wheels until they established a dealer network in the US. When they did it they took over several Ford branch houses and some dealers when Ford dumped them. Most of those dealers were selling Bolens lawn and garden tractors. The brown and white was the color of the Bolens,so DB painted their tractors to match the Bolens LGTs that the dealers were selling.
 
Very interesting commentary on the history, but here on the Atlantic sea board there was an importer/distributer that had set up a very substantial dealer network, prior to the Case--DB link. North East Distributers Inc. I think, but not sure. They also had ties to Sato compact tractors and they looked identical. I don't recall the Bolens connection and my dad was a Bolens dealer.
They also marketed the Pittsburg and National lines of tillage equipment.
This is recall, so don't quote me on this.
Loren
 
I sure wouldn't want to die on that sword either,but that was what I'd read in one of the DB history books. There was a distributor on the west coast somewhere that was importing them before they got their network set up too wasn't there? Seems to me I read that somewhere in pages of the same book.

Seems like DB just cared more about selling tractors than they did about what color they were,Oliver green,Bolens brown and white,it didn't matter.
 
OK,ya,I don't know if you can read this or not. It tells about two of them being sent to L.A. in 1958 painted blue-gray.
a267161.jpg
 
I mounted them down there. I thought it made it look more "orchardy". There was already two holes in the casting. I don't think that's what they're for,but that's what they're for now. lol
 
You have the one looking good and I'm sure the orchard model will get there too. We had allot of Oliver around my neck of the woods in the day but I don't ever remember seeing the 500s. Allot of 55s 550s and the 1250s and 1350s but never saw a 500 until you posted the first one you brought. I worked for the local Oliver dealer in 1968, maybe that was before they came out and he went out of business shortly after that.
 
Looks like you got the fuel pump fixed on the orchard. Awesome!
I'd be curious as to what the register guy has to say.
Serial number is quite obviously original and very legible now that
you've got it all cleaned up. Great looking machines. Both of them.
 
They were gone before you got there. The first ones rolled off the assembly line in February of 1960. The deal ended in April 1963. I probably wouldn't have remembered them,but a neighbor traded a 9N Ford in on a new one back when I was a kid and I still remember going there with Dad and Uncle Donald to look at it right after it was delivered.
 
I guess we'll have to find out another time what Nelson thinks of it. He called and said he was just north of Clare and was on his way,then he called about 15 minutes later and said his dispatcher called and he had to go over east to get a trailer and take it back to Goshen.

I didn't even think when you were here,you hadn't seen the one that was done had you? Or were you at Blanchard? I got to thinking that you didn't make it up there.
 
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