My life on the farm, good times with great friends!: TWELVE TW'S TWERKING!

Twelve days of Christmas - Reversed

My suave and sophisticated prick of a farm union rep, Handsome James has agreed to give us a little insight into his world over this festive season….

Handsome James who was born way back in the 1980’s has always had agriculture in his heart.

When he was young he used to play with model tractors as well as himself and in doing so developed a keen interest in ag. kit!

He grew up watching classic eighties tractors at work near his home and as we moved into the nineties his interest gained further momentum when he had the opportunity to pilot some of the 90s’ most iconic models including the now legendary Ford/New Holland series 40.

As we moved into the naughties and everything got all extreme, it was the emergence of the high capacity combine, and in particular the Claas Lexion 600 that caught his eye!

So over the next twelve days as we lead up to Christmas each day handsome James will offer some mixed media incarnations of kit that he has admired over the years as well as some of his all time favourite agricultural machines!

Some of which he even photo’d himself!

So this is sort of a reverse twelve days of Christmas! But with ag kit instead!

Any way enough of me harping on, its over you to you, Handsome James!

Handsome James - Reminisces

Thanks Jock and my warmest seasonal regards to everyone reading ‘The Reverse Days of Christmas’!

I Jumped at the chance to get involved with this project when Jock asked me share my deep interest of agricultural equipment with all his ‘Jock Strappers’.

I appreciate machinery on four criterias:

1) The spectacle of it doing what its supposed to be doing in the field, including its movement, function, sound and elegance

2) Design queues and aesthetics, its true when people talk about ‘tractor porn.

3) The approach, belief and philosophy of machinery manufacturers. Its a bit like supporting a football team. Certain players evoke different emotions about their product.

4) Heritage! Indeed, not just about what the classics or indeed modern classics are all about, but what I grew up observing and how it fairs now…

And number four is where we are going to start! The twelfth day before Christmas… I present to you:

TWELVE TW’S!

The Ford TW-25 was a 160 horse power tractor built in Basildon between the years of 1983 and 1989. In the 1980’s it was extremely popular with large scale farms. But it was the Force II's facelifted design that enraptured me back in 1987....

I lived on a large farming estate which ran three of these newly bad boys purchased the very same year. I have particularly fond memories observing them in action pulling a Westmac JF forager FCT-1000 with a front mounted swath displacer/mover! If you want to run one of these bad boys now, expect to pay circa twelve grand for a good example of one form the late eighties.

To a seven year old I thought the TW-25 commanded a true presence of power. You knew it was the leader in comparison to the other tractors in the field. It oozed horsepower and the long bonnet design angled down at the nose gave the impression of constant momentum. Classic Tractor magazine refers to bonnet as being ‘the length of an aircraft carrier’! I would definitely argue that the Ford TW-25 is a design icon of high horse power tractors.

I would look forward to spring time in order to see the silage operation in full swing! As one TW would be on cutting duties, using a British built ‘Grasshopper’ mower, another pulling the intensely red JF forager with the third pulling a late seventies John Deere forager. The deep red of the JF and the dark blue of the Force II Ford, worked beautifully with the dark green grass that was swathed and standing, along with the almost yellow cut grass underneath it.

The JF was a new acquisition at the time and didn’t seem to generate that distinct forage harvester sound. It could go at a serious pace though, almost twice the speed of the other TW pulling the John Deere forager and with twice the throughput due to the front pick dumping one swath onto another. Noise wasn’t the dominant factor here in my recollection it was the colour and the contrast; the blue, the red and the two shades of green.

During harvest one of the TW25’s would be on bailing detail. Its weapon of choice was a Hesston 4900 big square bailer! This became a standard site in the late eighties and when I saw my first John Deere series 50 pulling one of these big bailers afew years later, it just didn’t seem right! Although the colours did blend a little bit better. Contrast people! It’s all about the contrast!

I also had a 1:32 scale Britains Power Farm model. This was of the TW-25’s bigger brother – The 190hp TW-35. A mint in box example of one of these now can command around eighty pounds! Britains first launched the model in their 1987 catalogue and a drunken nostalgic purchase a couple of years ago led me to by one of these catalogues for around a fiver.

The Power farm series allowed you to hook the tractors up with implements as they had battery powered PTO’s. I remember my TW came with a small muck spreader. Even as a severn year old I severely doubted the realism of this amalgamation as the TW would have been way too powerful for a small lowly side discharge spreader!

The PTO HP of a TW35 is actually 170! Enough to send a little muck spreader into outer space!

However my main shout out is for the TW25 and not the 35 as well. This is purely for what I remember, The depth of the blue colour on the Force II model and and the appearance of constant movement form that iconic bonnet. So enough of me going on, here are twelve examples!