While doing some research for another article, the thought occurred to me to put together a list of the 10 most popular John Deere two-cylinder tractors by number produced. However, this seemingly simple procedure becomes more difficult when you start trying to figure out what to consider a “model.” In the first list, you’ll see here, the tractors that constitute a “model” are those that differ only in axles or wheels. Thus, the “BN” and “BW” were included with the “B,” while the “BR” was not. Likewise, the “M,” 40 and 420 include all of the wheel tractors, but not crawlers.
- “B” 303,279
- “A” 287,237
- “D” 158,730
- “G” 60,356
- “H” 58,591
- “60” 58,289
- “M” 45,800
- 70 41,029
- 40 37,309
- 50 32,574
No surprises here—the “B” and the “A” run away with the race, while the slow but steady “D” comes in a strong third. Just out of the top 10 are the surprisingly popular “MT” and the “GP.”
“Not fair!” says Mr. 70 guy. “There are more mechanical differences between a 1935 and 1952 ‘B’ than there are between a 70 and 730.”
Good point—let’s try that list again, but this time we’ll divide the “A” and “B” into unstyled, early styled and late styled. The “D” we’ll divide into unstyled and styled. For the “G,” we’ll go unstyled, add the “GM” and early styled together, since they were basically the same tractor anyway, and then the late styled. Here’s the way they stack up now.
- Early styled “B” 136,863
- Late styled “A” 117,965
- Unstyled “D” 111,738
- Late styled “B” 109,253
- Early styled “A” 103,294
- Unstyled “A” 65,978
- “H” 58,591
- 60 58,289
- Unstyled “B” 57,040
- Styled “D” 46,992
Sorry, Mr. 70 guy, but as you can see, even when we divide the letter series tractors up into subcategories, only one number series tractor cracks the top 10. But just so that you don’t pout, we’ll add the number series tractors together. Of course, that means that to be fair, we also have to add the “A,” “B,” “D” and “G” numbers back together.
As you can see, things look a little different now. Another way to look at it would be to divide the total number of a model built by the number of years it was in production.
- “B” 303,279
- “A” 287,237
- “D” 158,730
- 60-630 98,879
- 70-730 98,315
- 40-435 85,439
- “M, MT” 76,273
- “G” 60,356
- “H” 58,591
- 50-530 55,385
One final list. Let’s plug the New Generation 10 series tractors into the original list and see what we come up with:
- “B” 303,279
- “A” 287,237
- “D” 158,730
- “G” 60,356
- “H” 58,591
- 60 58,289
- 4010 57,573
- 2010 55,397
- “M” 45,800
- 70 41,029
If we added in production numbers for New Generation 20 series and Generation II, 30 and 40 series tractors (which we don’t have accurate production numbers for, it would be interesting to see where the 4020, 4430 and 4440 might end up.
My guess is that the 4020 would end up in the number 4 slot, while the 4430 and 4440 somewhere in the 6 to 8 area.
