Name/Title
Tractor - Frazer Farm Equipment Model TEntry/Object ID
5555.555.18Description
During late 1947, Graham-Paige's Frazer Farm Equipment subsidiary was building some 300 Rototillers daily, and the company was making money. However, after Mr. Frazer sold his auto interests to Henry Kaiser, Kaiser-Frazer dealers stopped handling the tillers and sales plummeted. By 1948, it was obvious something had to be done to save the company, which had by now moved from Willow Run, Mich., to York, Pa. To save the firm, G-P decided to build a small tractor and designed the Frazer Model T, so named because Joe Frazer said the new machine would be the "agricultural equivalent to the Model T Ford." The tractor chassis would be built by a Dennison, Texas concern, the Jaques Power Saw Company, hence the name Jaques-Frazer. The completed chassis were shipped to York, where Frazer Farm Equipment installed the engines, which were built by Bell Aircraft to G-P specifications, and the hoods, which were supposedly made from parts left over from the manufacture of B-24 bombers at Willow Run during the war.
Rated to pull one 14-inch plow, the Model T was powered by a one-cylinder, 2-cycle engine, like the Simar-Swiss designed power plant on the Rototiller. The engine displaced only 22.97 cubic inches. Some accounts credit it with five horsepower, and some say six; in either case, a 14-inch plow would be a load. The machine had individual, foot-operated turning brakes, a recoil-type pull-starter, a hand clutch, and a three-speed transmission with a high and low range.
