Excellence In Power And Performance

A classic view of a farm at work prompted Alan Barnes to look into the story of the MF 65

Intrigued by the sight of an ageing Massey Ferguson 65 being driven along a country road a few miles from the Northumberland town of Wooler, my curiosity overcame any thoughts of immediately filling the lengthy list of shopping given to me by my good lady.

This Massey was by no means a restored machine on its way to a show, but a working tractor which was towing an equally ageing harvester and was heading for a nearby field of “baigies”. The Massey was in the company of an International 684 and I spent a while watching the two old tractors in action as they harvested the field.

While its baby brother the MF 35 has become an iconic British tractor it arguably rather overshadowed the 65, but this was also a very successful model with in excess of 100,000 machines being built in the UK. The design of the tractor stemmed from development work to produce a more powerful version of the TE-20 and by 1948 designs had been prepared and prototype machines had been built for testing and evaluation. Both diesel engine and petrol engine versions were built and the result was a final specification being drawn up for a new 56hp tractor to be designated the TE-60.

The prototype machines had been designated the LTX and in the summer of 1953 one of the LTX machines successfully completed a series of demonstrations, being put up against a Massey-Harris 744. The new tractor out-performed the Massey-Harris but it would seem that internal politics came into play as the LTX, or the TE-60, did not enter production in the USA. For a time the possibility of producing the TE-60 at the Banner Lane factory was also considered, but by this time their production was geared up for the new FE-35.