The original Big Four: With imitators sprouting everywhere, it could have set the standard

摘要

In the early years of the tractor industry the design of the perfect machine seemed to be anybody's guess. Just about any tinkerer or manufacturer had an opportunity to come up with a design that would become the standard of the industry. By 1912, it had reportedly already happened in automobiles - cars all looked the same. According to P. J. Barnard, it was "often very confusing to distinguish one from the other." Such a standardization of design could and certainly would happen in the farm tractor industry. It was "very reasonable to believe that in but very few years there will be the same startling similarity between the different makes of gas tractors."