It is a rare tractor among rare tractors, but there it was in all its shining glory — an Oliver 80 Diesel Row Crop tractor. Antique collectors and tractor enthusiasts from around the country who participated in the Hart-Parr Oliver Collectors Association national winter gathering at the Chuck Pohlman Ag Complex at Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Neb., recently passed the tractor and inspected it carefully.

Fewer than 200 row crop versions or standards of this tractor — all with a Buda 4DT226 diesel engine — came off the Oliver assembly line in Charles City, Iowa. Out of those built, only a handful of Oliver 80 diesel tractors, standard or row crop, are known to still exist in the world. One of them belongs to Nebraska collector Larry Clark of Stanton, who not only brought the Oliver 80, but also a total of 10 tractors to the event.

Tractors with a story

John Schoenauer of Norfolk, Neb., is president of the Central States Hart-Parr Oliver Collectors Association (CSHPOCA). He brought a special family Oliver that belonged to his wife’s father. The 1961 Oliver 880 was built in late October that year, and shipped through the Omaha branch house to Kolterman Farm Equipment in Pierce, Neb.

“My father-in-law bought the tractor used,” Schoenauer says. “It had been a loader tractor for years. We purchased it on his auction in 2010. We had to rebuild the front end because everything was worn out. We also worked on the transmission, and a friend and I painted the tractor.”

Those are the kinds of stories that are common among tractor collectors. “We had collectors from 12 other states for sure and Canada,” Schoenauer says, with the farthest travelers coming from North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan, along with several other adjacent states.

“We had someone representing 14 of the 21 regional chapters of HPOCA at the show, with around 1,500 people attending,” he adds. There were also 60 boys and girls, ages 4 to 12, participating in the pedal pull, hosted by Patefield Pedal Pullers of Norfolk.

“We made so many new friends through this process of planning the show and during the show,” Schoenauer says. “And we loved learning more of the history of the brands involved with Hart-Parr, Oliver and White.”

More stories

Along with his 80 Diesel RC, Clark also brought a Cockshutt 60 and 70, an Oliver 70 Orchard, and five streamlined Oliver 88s, also known as “Old Style 88s,” with one of each configuration offered by the company. “We know that one of those tractors is from the first 250 pre-production tractors built in 1946, and another is suspected to be,” Schoenauer says.

There were experimental tractors on display, including the XO-121 from the Floyd County Museum in Charles City, Iowa; and another experimental White 2-90 tractor owned by Bill Hasenkamp of Beemer, Neb. One Hart-Parr 12-24 was at the gathering, owned by Bob and Karen Jones of Wakefield, Neb. Karen is a granddaughter of Charles Parr, the co-founder of the Hart-Parr tractor company.

Dennis McKee of Hutchinson, Kan., brought a unique mist green-colored 880 Oliver. “This tractor was a marketing mistake,” Schoenauer says. “Sales thought the models 770 and 880 looked too much alike from a distance, so they decided to change the color on the 880. There were 249 built and more were scheduled, but the factory shut down because of a labor strike. The farmers didn’t like the new color, so when production resumed, the color was changed back to the traditional meadow green.”

With presentations from Bill Martinson — a Fargo, N.D., engineer who worked at the Charles City, Iowa, plant and talked about the merger between Oliver and Minneapolis Moline — and Duane Starr, who was the manager of the Omaha branch house, the gathering also heard from former employees who worked in Charles City for one of the White brands.

The summer HPOCA show will be at Heritage Park in Forest City, Iowa, from June 17-19. It will be hosted by the Iowa Cornbelt Oliver Collectors Association. Learn more about collectors in Nebraska and the local CSHPOCA chapter at centralstatesoliver.com.