Wading through a sea of blue horsepower

I see a lot of tractor collections go to auction every year, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like David Burbach’s. There are plenty of guys with big collections of 8Ns and 8000/9000-Series tractors, but David Burbach collected mainly compact and mid-sized stuff.

The one thing that ties it all together?

It’s all Ford and New Holland, which is something I almost never see.

The David Burbach Collection

So who was David Burbach, anyway?

To answer this question, I called Cheryl Huggins, David’s fiancee. We had a great conversation and I learned a lot about who he really was.

He was an engineer by training, building everything from highways to city projects. In the late 1970s, he founded Burbach Aquatics in Platteville, Wisconsin. The company has built hundreds of community swimming pools and aquatic centers in the Midwest, and continue to do so today. If you live in the Midwest, it wouldn’t surprise me if your kids (or grandkids) learned to swim in a pool his company built.

Beyond the business, though, he was passionate about three things: family, farming, and Ford — all things Ford.

According to Cheryl, the Ford bug bit David pretty early in life. Some of his favorite childhood memories included visits to the local Ford dealers with his uncle Paul. They spent hours looking at pickups, muscle cars, and farm equipment together. He fell in love with the brand, and began building a collection as soon as he could. Trucks, tractors, cars — you name it. If it had a Ford emblem, he was all about it.

The tractors, implements, and parts are now for sale on Mecum’s On Time online auction, wrapping up the week of Aug. 5. Let’s take a look at a few of the tractors on the sale, shall we?

The David Burbach tractor collection

Like I said, this is a pretty large collection. There are 114 tractors on this sale, and 113 of them wear blue sheet metal. The odd man out is a Jacobsen garden tractor, and it's identical to a late-’60s Ford 120. Here are a few of my favorites.

Ford 276

These super-handy little tractors were built by Versatile, and have a big cult following. Even with close to 6,500 hours on it, there will be bidders fighting over this one, mark my words.

The big Ford-a-tiles

By the mid-’80s, Ford was looking to get out of the tractor business, but it wasn’t really a full-line manufacturer. They'd always gotten away with it through relationships with companies like Claas and others. When they launched a line of hay equipment in the ’70s, they had Claas build it (and the same with their combines). However, they felt that in order to be more attractive to buyers, they needed to have more curb appeal. They bought New Holland from Sperry in 1986, which covered most of their hay/forage/harvesting equipment. However, they still needed a “big” 4WD in their product line, so in 1988, they bought Versatile. Versatile had been building big articulated 4WDs since the mid-’60s, and they had a top-notch product. It turned out to be a very good move on Ford’s part, too!

The 846 and 876 were two of the models that resulted from that purchase.

The Boomers

New Holland’s Boomer 8N was a neat little tractor that, in my opinion, never got enough love. They were launched in 2009 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Ford’s N-series tractors (as you can see, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the original 2/8/9N). It packed a pretty good punch as well, with MFWD, a tough little 3-cylinder diesel rated at 50 hp, and a CVT transmission. It was a highly customizable tractor, too. Remember when BMW launched the modern Mini Cooper, and how you could personalize it with factory parts and doodads? You could do the very same thing with the Boomer 8N.

Sadly, they didn’t sell very well. They were well-built, but they had some issues with the transmission. Furthermore, they released the tractor during a recession — with a big price tag. In 2011, NH pulled the plug, having only built about 1,200.

There are two of these tractors on this sale, and they’re consecutive serial numbers!

The 4630

To quote one of my buddies from Kentucky: “Don’t sleep on the 4630. Those are excellent little machines.”

He’s right. These terrific little tractors punch way above their weight class. For the first few years of production, the 55 hp, 3-cylinder diesel was naturally-aspirated. However, in 1995, they went with an engine that was a touch smaller and bolted on a teeny tiny turbo that gave it a little bit more power.

Overall, these little machines are exceptionally capable. The fact that this one has an MFWD front axle and a cab makes it pretty darn rare, too.

The 641

Cheryl told me a funny story about how they got this tractor.

They were on their way to see some of Cheryl’s family in Minnesota for a weekend. David was fast asleep in the shotgun seat when they came up on a place with a Ford 8N painted on the side of the silo. Cheryl said something out loud about it, and instantly, David was wide awake and asked her to pull in the driveway.

“You know, David never had a problem talking to people,” she said. “If he saw a tractor he liked on the property, he’d stop and introduce himself to the owner and ask if it was for sale. 'You never know until you ask,’ he always said!"

Such was the case with this one. It turns out that the place they'd stumbled upon was Tractor Land, a business southeast of Brainerd that specializes in Ford and Ferguson tractors. He struck up a conversation, and it didn’t take long before this pretty little 641 Workmaster found its way back down to Platteville!

There are many other tractors on the sale, but I’m going to leave those for you to poke around and discover for yourselves. I’ll say this: most all have been used, but very lightly. They’ve been very well-maintained, too. David was somewhat fanatical about using Ford-branded parts, filters, and fluids. (Yes, even fluids — Ford used to sell that stuff too!)

Another thing that you’ll realize when you’re looking at this auction is that David Burbach was very dedicated about trying to complete each series of tractor he collected. I don’t know that he ever actually completed one, but I know he got very close to it. He also wasn’t opposed to having multiples of each model. I believe I counted a half-dozen 2120s on the sale!

Wrapping up

Like I said earlier, collections like this one aren’t common, and that’s what makes this upcoming auction interesting to me. The tractors aren’t exceedingly rare in and of themselves. There aren’t any one-of-ones here — and that’s completely okay. You don’t need to have crazy-rare stuff to have a cool collection.

I think the reason that this collection is so interesting is because it’s comprised of so many smaller tractors that we don’t see all that often these days. Furthermore, David Burbach also had sheds of implements, tires and tools, and new old stock parts. I lost count of how many unused mower decks, snowblowers, skid steer buckets, and other small implements there are on this sale, but there have to be dozens of them!

One thing Cheryl asked me to mention is that they're having preview days on July 20 and Aug. 3, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the farm locations in Platteville. I’m pretty sure I’m going to head up there this coming Saturday, and I hope to see you there!