If you have been reading BangShift for any time you know that I love nothing more when modern history and mechanical stuff collide and that is exactly what we have here in a pretty extraordinary promotion film from Ford, circa 1956. The film is promoting Ford tractors and it does so by showing them building a housing development that would change America, Levittown, Pennsylvania. We can argue about what Levittown is now but what it was back then was essentially the “American dream” wrapped in its own neat little package. This was not home construction like the country had known it before. This was post war America. A country that had learned the value in cranking out the work, cranking out the materials needed for its Army to win quickly figure out that the idea could be applied to everything, including housing.

As you will see, each home was a carbon copy of the one next to it. The shrubs went in the same place, the underground oil tank went in the same place, etc. It became a game of speed and efficiency for the contractors to make money. These were not big dollar custom homes that could be profit centers. To make the money was to succeed on volume and that is where the tractors come it.

From digging the holes for the tanks, boring the holes for the shrubs to be dropped into, grading, seeding, trenching, and carrying away piles of material, it required tractors that were able to be used in a multitude of different roles. The tractors mainly shown in the film at Ford NAAs which are the models that replaced the vaunted N-series which was produced through the 1940s and into the 1950s. The NAAs were an advancement as they were a little larger and a little heavier than the N-series tractors and had had overhead valve engines, more power, and better hydraulics. The following generations of tractors after the NAA models was the “hundred series” and since these tractors by and large do not have the writing on the grill shell that the “hundred series” tractors had, I am pegging them as NAAs. The only odd thing is that NAAs were out of production when this was made but the look was so similar the marketing guys must have gone for it.

This is an awesome look back into one of the most revolutionary home construction projects in American history. If you are a tractor lover, a history buff, or both you’ll really dig this!

Press play to see this cool promotional video for Ford tractors from the 1970s –