County Takes On Muir-Hill

It is not every day you see a tug o’ war between a County and a Muir-Hill, but this was the case when Jane Brooks took time out from farming to visit Tim Pearman’s Ford collection at Astwood Bank in Worcestershire.

- Tim

The throaty roar of the engine and high-pitched drop box squeal of the Muir-Hill 121 resonated across the field as a County 1174 grunted its opposition in a seemingly well balanced battle of two icons of the 1970s.

This was just part of the entertainment provided for the Ford and Fordson Association’s family weekend last summer as host Tim Pearman went to a great deal of effort to put on a spectacular display of his tractor collection.

Coupled together with a pretty heavy-duty looking chain, the pair of tractors seemed well up for a fight but, as Tim explained, he wanted to settle an argument.

“There has always been a lot of controversy; there are people that like Counties and think Muir-Hills are rubbish and people that like Muir-Hill and think Counties are rubbish so I am just trying to put the myth to rest. They are actually fairly evenly matched. Personally, I did think the Muir-Hill would win and it did just have the edge; it moved the County with the brakes on, whereas the County didn’t move the Muir-Hill when it had its brakes on at all.”

Elaborating on the tractor trial, he said: “There is not a lot of weight differential between the two, it’s just a totally different configuration on the drive train; the County is all driven off the back axle whereas the Muir-Hill has a drop box. But when you look at the design of all Muir-Hills, we have a dumper and other models and they are all on the drop box system, which has proved to be the better system. Also, you get a better steering lock as the Muir-Hills haven’t got the prop shafts up the sides.”

After watching the two tractors I had to take his word for it as, to be honest, I found it hard to judge them myself, but then I wasn’t in the driving seat which, no doubt, would have been the place to really get a feel for the pulling power of the machines.