07/24/2025
Currently at the Northern Indiana Power from the Past show in Winamac, IN. This is one of several tractors I brought down to display. It has been getting a lot of attention so I'd like to take a second to talk about it.
The engine is a 1933 JD Model E mounted to a Wheel Horse round hood chassis. It is currently owned and was built by a long time friend of my family, Roger Tinti, who collected tractors/engines his whole life and is a well known figure at the Tri-State show in Portland, IN.
Probably 50 or 60 years ago, Roger's dad remembered this particular engine attached to a cement mixer on a farm up in Loretto, MI. Roger tracked it down, and found it laying in the dirt; but anybody who knows these engines knows that they're basically indestructible and they had it back up in running in no time.
The thing about hit and miss engines, is although neat, there's only so much that you can actually do with one especially at a show. Roger's dad had the idea to mount several of them on to Wheel Horse chassis and over the course of several years they built somewhere around 20 tractors similar to this one using various hit and miss as well as throttle-governor engines. About 25 years ago, Roger's dad passed away and a massive auction happened. Most of the hit and miss tractors were sold, but Roger retained four of them including this one (the others were a 1925 Model E, an Economy, and another brand I'm not familiar with).
In the 25 years since the big auction, Roger took this tractor along with the other three he retained to various shows around Indiana and they could always be seen yearly in the Mishawaka Memorial Day Parade under the guise of "Americana Antique Engine Society" which is pretty much defunct, but I still have the sign and banner as a form of nostalgia I guess.
Today Roger is 86 and in rough health. His mind is still sharp as a tack but his body is bad. When I saw that one of the features for CGR23 was going to be Model E's, I asked Roger if I could take the 1933 down and display it on his behalf, he agreed to it. He wants to see the more prominent pieces in his collection go to people who will not only take care of it, but appreciate the history they represent and continue to show them. I'm 29 now and I pretty much grew up around this tractor, so I'm in active discussions with him now to make it a permanent fixture in my own fleet of JD garden tractors and keep it on the show circuit for years to come.
If anybody has ever seen a similar tractor, weather powered by a JD engine or otherwise, there's a good chance it was built by Roger and his dad. They've turned up from time to time and I'd love to see photos of any others still out there.
In conclusion, I'd like to share the slogan from Roger's old Americana Antique Engine Society: "Old engines never die, they just chug away!"
