We’ve got to thank Powermaster’s Brady Basner for the tip on this Craigslist ad for the cool 1929 Ford doodlebug you see below. The machine started life as a two ton truck and was then converted into a tractor of sorts when its days as a working truck were over. These conversations were pretty popular back in the 1930s and early 1940s when old trucks could be had for very short money and a tractor was a pretty pricey endeavor thrifty thinking farmers have always been some of the best innovators in America and their creation of what we now know as doodlebugs stand as proof of that claim. In our sick mind we see this thing on the Bonneville salt pushing some old roadster or other vintage looking piece of the starting line, the old four banger popping and chuffing away. There are two transmissions doubled up for super low gearing which made this little contraption more useful for pulling plows and other implements. Being that it is a truck transmission and the fact that the rear tires are probably double the diameter of the stockers, we bet that this thing would go about 40 mph or more. We wouldn’t want to be driving it that speed, but it would sure look cool whizzing down the salt!
Being that old worn down trucks were then made into stripped down tractors that were worked until they normally died right there in the field, doodlebugs aren’t exactly growing on trees. This one is priced at $1,000 and that may be about right to a collector or someone looking to add a piece of curiously iron to their gaggle of old tractors and/or equipment. With the big agricultural tires on the back, we bet this machine slogged its what through more than a few muddy mucky fields during its life. Oh, the stories it could tell.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE PHOTOS AND THEN HIT THE LINK TO SEE THE FULL CL AD FOR THIS COOL DOODLE BUG –
CLICK HERE to see this cool 1929 Ford Doodlebug
