Case IH’s Robert Meier met recently with Rachel Gingell of Farms.com to talk about his Case VA restoration project as well as some important Case IH history.
In the video Meier shows Gingell the Case VA he restored with a co-op student from one of his dealers. Meier and the student dismantled and tuned-up the VA, had the unit repainted by Tired Iron, and reassembled the unit.
“It’s an important tractor in Case history,” explains Meier, a territory sales manager based in Brantford, Ontario.
In 1937, Case purchased the Rock Island Tractor Company in Rock Island, IL. The Rock Island Engineers noticed that the market was trending towards a smaller tractor, so they began building the VA without the knowledge of head office.
“When the president finally relented and said ‘OK, we’ll do a small tractor,’ they rolled it out of the shadows and said ‘Here we go! We happen to have one right here.’”
Meier took Gingell through a demonstration of the VA’s Eagle Hitch system.
The Eagle Hitch was developed to provide consumers an alternative to the Ferguson System’s draft control. “It simply lifts up and down.”
The Eagle Hitch allowed customers to latch on to their implements in less than a minute from the tractor seat.
In contrast to the Eagle Hitch, Meier shows off the Fast Hitch on a Farmall 230. “The difference with the Fast Hitch two-point system was simply that – two point. These latches would pop open, one would back up to an implement, snap in, lift, and go.”
The company introduced this system in Ontario at the International Plowing Match with the Square-Dancing Farmalls.
The ring was filled with implements and the Farmalls would hook on to one, do their dance in the ring, then back up, switch implements, and repeat the process. This showed the public how fast it could be done, all from the seat of the tractor.