Antique & Classic Cars Blog

There is a kinship among the machines that built this country–the farther back you go, the closer the link appears. Look at the engine, wheels, radiator, drive chain, and gears on an early automobile and you can see that they are similar–or identical–to those on the day’s farm equipment. (Adelmann Engine, which rebuilt the ’62 Olds V8 now residing in my ’72 Triumph TR6, does tractor and industrial engines too. Sitting disassembled on a workbench, piston engines for many purposes are hard to tell apart.)

Tractors are like slow cars built for towing and to power machines. (Early Jeeps and Land Rovers had Power Take-Offs too.)

This past Saturday my wife Jenneane and I drove to southern Minnesota to pick up a lot of grass-fed beef and pastured pork we bought from an Iowa farm. We met the owners, Ryan and Kristine Jepsen, at an old-style threshing, using techniques from the early 20th Century. Though we did not see the threshing machines in action, they were still there, connected by long (limb-eating) belts to vintage Deere and Farmall tractors. What a treat to see these early players in agriculture’s industrial revolution!

Not too many operational threshing machines around today. Here’s two fresh from work.

One of the farmers thought the machines were from about 1918. You’ve seen them before, moldering in the fields or overgrown beside a falling barn. How exciting for a gearhead to see a pair of them, not only in working condition but freshly used and still attached in the very way they used to churn when they were great time savers instead of inefficient relics.

Careful where you put your hands and feet!

After lunch, the Jepsens took us out to see their “new” property, where they will build a barn-and-home-in-one, and to their present home, where we loaded a big cooler with a LOT of frozen meat. My wife was excited to get cuts of meat unavailable in supermarkets because they take the place of other more profitable steaks and roasts.

Deere and Farmall tractors power threshers with broad belts running from driven pulleys.

We talked about taking my classic MG on this adventure, but the large cooler would not fit in the hatchback “B.” So this trip’s ruminations were left at the car-kin level. Way worth it though–the mechanized world sprang from the agricultural one, and it’s always a treat to see early innovations up close.

Peaceful scenes abound in the countryside. Visit them in your classic car before summer ends.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am and is filed under Car stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.