The Model F looks very similar to the MOM and indeed shared much the same components and specification. The Hercules engine was replaced from 1920 by a Ford built unit which was still of the same basic pattern with four cylinders and rated at 1000rpm. The gearbox gave three forward speeds and one reverse and the total weight was of around 3000 pounds.
Apparently the name Fordson was used instead of simply Ford because an enterprising tractor manufacturer in America had already registered his machine as the Ford Tractor.
That tractor was not a success but it did prevent Henry Ford using his name on tractors until 1939.
The Fordson name itself was taken from a contraction of the new firm set up by Henry to build the tractor – Henry Ford and Son. Under this new company the Model F flourished with 34,000 tractors being produced in its first full year of production, overtaking by a considerable margin all the other tractor manufacturers then in existence.
Originally constructed at the Brady Street factory in Dearborn, the Model F was eventually built in the brand new giant Rouge River plant just outside Detroit with a second factory also opening in Cork, Ireland. Yet another plant, in Hamilton, Ohio, also built the tractor but by 1922 all Model F production was centred at the Detroit factory.
The Model F itself did not change much during its production life, but a few things were altered as time passed.
In 1923 a transmission brake was added to the specification, a slightly lighter grey paint was applied from 1924 and rear fenders also became available. Otherwise though, the Model F remained as before; a simple, reliable and rugged machine. What had changed however was the price – it had gone down!
The Fordson was now so cheap that no other tractor manufacturer could hope to compete with it!
Industrial versions were also built from 1927, although not in huge numbers, and these featured solid rubber tyres instead of the steel wheels of the agricultural tractor.
The Model F was a very successful machine but space in the American plant was needed for automobile manufacture leading to tractor production ceasing in 1928. But it wasn’t the end of the Fordson tractor; soon a new version would appear, once again built in Cork, Ireland.