STEVE’S DREAM MACHINE

A WORKING CLASSIC

Steve’s dream machine

Steve Brooks has spent his career in the motor industry, so he’s no stranger to a set of spanners and a spray gun. However, he says he’s neither the time nor the inclination to restore a battered old relic. So, when he bought a tractor for his smallholding that’s high above the North Wales coast, Steve settled on a tidy, working classic that could be put straight to good use on his nine-acre site. “I initially thought of getting myself a Kubota, or something relatively modern, but something drove me towards the 135,” he explained.

As a youngster, Steve did a milk round with a Morris Minor, muckedout cattle sheds on the same farm and frequently drove the farmer’s 135. As soon as he pictured himself owning a tractor for the first time, these memories came flooding back. “I needed something useful and reliable to do the jobs on my land, but then I thought it would be nice to have something with nostalgia attached to it, so the 135 totally fitted the bill,” he added.

Jo Roberts meets an owner who believes that the popular MF135 remains a genuinely useful, working classic.

Interesting option

Steve felt the 135 was old enough to be of interest, but not so old that it might be temperamental and awkward to use. When he bought the tractor at a local auction, it was in tidy, running condition, but the

Quite possibly the nation’s favourite classic tractor, the MF135 also has global appeal, and can still be found hard at work all over the world. Steve Brooks on board his muchloved working classic; he thought of buying something more modern for working on his smallholding, but nostalgia took over and he opted for this 1971 MF135.

Although Steve has spent his career in the motor industry, he had no desire to restore an old tractor. So he chose for a well-maintained example that was ready for work.

radiator had seen better days, so he had it serviced by Llanrwst Radiators. Otherwise, the tractor was in decent condition and is an older restoration that has been kept up to scratch more as a reliable workhorse than as a showpiece.

“I might restore and respray it one day,” says Steve, who runs his own business, Advance Autoparts, an independent supplier distributing

INTRODUCING THE MF135

The Massey Ferguson 135 was introduced in 1964 as part of MF’s 100 Series of tractors, intended to update the old MF35; a design that hadn’t been radically updated since the days of the FE35. In the early 1960s, many tractors were still being built in a style that followed on from a pre-war design, although the 135 wasn’t totally turning its back on Ferguson’s traditional design.

The new range was designed to bring MF to the forefront of modern farming. American examples were built at Massey Ferguson’s Detroit plant, while the British versions were built in Coventry, with a Perkins three-cylinder engine.

GLOBAL APPEAL

The Massey Ferguson 135 was one of the most popular tractors of its era, and remains a firm favourite with collectors today. The high prices these tractors can command make it a model well worth restoring to a high level. However, not only is the 135 much loved by collectors, but it’s also popular in developing countries, too.

Although the 135 has increased in value in recent years, auctions still see plenty of overseas buyers seeking out our 135s for export to countries like Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia. Higher-tech tractors are not only more expensive to buy, but they’re also far more complicated to mend. So, the 135 perfectly fits the bill as a useful workhorse that’s robust and simple to fix out in the field.

Reliable tractors can massively transform the lives of people living in poorer countries, allowing them to farm more effectively, to carry vital supplies like water and building materials and to earn a living.

So far, Steve has bought a topper and a set of harrows to maintain the land, plus an old Monarch seed drill to take to shows. I feel more implements will soon follow…

Steve settled on a tidy, working classic that could be put straight to good use on his nine-acre site

automotive parts, “but now, I feel it’s well preserved and since I want to use it, I’m not going to spray it yet. If I sprayed it, I’d be more precious about scratches and so on, so it’s better off left as it is for now.”

Steve leads the way to the shed and fires up the 135. “It starts right on the button every time, no messing,” he says, which is exactly what you need in a tractor that was bought for work. Fear of having to tinker with a temperamental old tractor puts some people off buying an oldie for work, especially if the buyer isn’t ‘au fait’ with their ways. Some people also have concerns about how easy to use and how safe an oldie will be. Steve said: “It’s very simple to use, and easy to work on.

We aren’t quite sure how a Reading-registered tractor ended up in Anglesey!

While the earlier MF35 had followed the pattern of Ferguson’s original tractor design, the 135 had a whole new shape, designed to take the tractor to the forefront of modern farming.

THE GOLDEN AGE

Many farmers cite the 1960s and early ‘70s as the golden age of farming. Agriculture was moving forward quickly into the modern age; there were plenty of grants and subsidies available, and farming was more profitable than it had been in the past. The new tractors were reliable and more user-friendly than those of the 1950s, and yields increased as did the prices these yields returned, making this an exciting time to be involved in agriculture.

It wasn’t all good news, though. There was Foot & Mouth disease for one thing, plus it was the dawn of the ‘chemical age’ of farming, and there was little or no understanding of the environmental impact and the damage that overuse of those chemicals could cause.

However, all-in-all it was a time of great progress and many farmers fondly remember successfully using what we’d now call a ‘classic’ as their sole farm tractor. One good tractor, like the MF135, was capable of every job required on a farm and, with the right implements, farmers were self-sufficient and rarely had to bring specialist contractors in.

Tractors could be easily repaired at home, so farmers didn’t have to call on technological experts when something went wrong with their machinery. It was indeed a simpler time and no wonder people hark back to the tractors of this era.

A recent poll of our nation’s favourite tractors lists the Ferguson TE-20, the Nuffield Universal, the David Brown 990 Selectamatic, the Fordson Major and the Massey Ferguson 135 as being our most-loved models. The fact most of these tractors are what people were using in the 1960s and ‘70s shows that this era was considered by most as the heyday of British farming.

Just look at it; it’s a real babe, isn’t it?”

Steve is obviously well enamoured with his 135, so much so that he pushes me to admit that it is a ‘babe’, and that it is (possibly) a better tractor than my four-cylinder MF35. “Alright, it might be ‘better’ than my 35, but it isn’t as shapely,” I admit.

However, to me the 135 – perfect workhorse that it is – was the start of the era when tractors lost their curves and became boxy, modernlooking and less attractive overall. Saying that, I fully appreciate the 135 was probably the pinnacle of tractor design, in that it’s a tractor with all mod cons, but which still retains the simplicity of an older machine, making it the ultimate workhorse.

Heavy steering

The only faults Steve can find with the 135 is that it can be a little heavy on the steering, and the clutch can be a little stiff to use for long periods. A modern tractor might be lighter on the body, but then Steve has enjoyed taking the 135 to a local show, with a ‘Knapp’ Monarch seed drill behind it. It’s unlikely he would have done that with a nearly-new Kubota, or a brand new Tafe...

Steve felt the 135 was old enough to be of interest, but not so old that it might be temperamental and awkward to use

The addition of a handbrake and foot throttle gave the driver more options than ever before.