1966 CASE COMFORT KING 1032 WESTERN SPECIAL

The 1960s had not been good to J.I. Case. Besides the ag market being a little wonky, they started the decade with a lot of internal management difficulties and a great deal of debt.

- JIM ALLEN

Major debt that required the proverbial belt-tightening in the form of internal downsizing and cost-cutting, plus a bank loan that had a lot of spending restrictions. Engineering took some big cuts and that plays a part in this story on the 1030 Series Tractors.

The 30 Series Tractors debuted for 1960 as the “new” Case tractors, replacing the well-liked Hundred Series tractors from the ‘50s. The 430, 530, 630, 730, 830, and 930 all debuted in the early part of the decade, the bigger 730, 830, and 930 coming right away. They turned out to be solid tractors that did well in the market overall, but with the cutbacks, updates were slow in coming and the line had trouble keeping up with the tractor market.

The “Comfort King” moniker appeared in 1962, when Case raised the operator’s platform on the larger tractors, added a much improved suspended seat and moved the fuel tank behind the operator. The Draft-o- Matic load sensing3-point hitch had appeared in 1960 on the smaller tractors with an upper link sensor. It was adapted to the larger tractors for 1964 for the bigger ones with a lower link sensor and that helped with Case’s market parity trouble.