Worthy of gold?
Initially available from October 1956, the Ferguson 35 was launched into a market full of customers with almost impossibly high expectations. By 1956 the TE-20 had been produced for some 10 years or so and had quite literally revolutionised farming throughout the developed world.
With a wide range of implements to complement these hugely capable tractors, Harry Ferguson had skilfully formed an entire system of mechanised farming.
In creating the FE 35, Ferguson’s design engineers would need to come up with a new machine that retained the same vital statistics in terms of wheelbase and link arm geometry provided on the previous TE-20 models, which would render the TE-20’s implements ‘backwardly compatible’, yet innovate in other areas to ensure Ferguson’s market dominance continued.
Initially sold with a blend of Ferguson grey tinwork and a striking gold skid unit, this tractor is, unsurprisingly, now better known to us all as the ‘Grey & Gold’ or ‘Copper Belly’ for those living to the west of the Irish Sea.
After just one full year of production, the FE 35 would be given the MF re-branding treatment to become the more common red and grey farm tractor.
It’s unclear as to when Massey Ferguson ceased to call the 35 the FE 35, but research has led me to believe it was soon after the change to the three-cylinder Perkins diesel engine, as product information from the time introduced the 3-A-152-engined model as the ‘FE 35 Tractor with New Engine’. For this reason alone, the buyers’ guide will be based on the FE 35 produced from its initial launch in 1956 to the period of November 1959, when the three-cylinder Perkins engine replaced the Standard Motor Company’s four-cylinder 23C engine.
Model variants
The FE 35 was offered in both standard and
