Des could not do without his Fergys

Des Farrelly on his 1956 Fergy Grey and Gold.

As you curl up Des Farrelly’s driveway near Pahoia his love of tractors and farm machinery is immediately evident.

But you also notice he likes to do things differently. He bought the 1ha site covered in gorse in 1985. He bulldozed the flat top and built his own three-level A-frame home.

He’s since collected more than 130 Triumph cars, he’s moved an old shed from his family’s former farm at Bethlehem – now covered in houses on Moffat Rd – to store home and farm antique items, plus machinery parts.

And he has many shipping containers – some stacked on top of one another – in use as workshops, for farm machinery parts, car garages, plus an upstairs table tennis room overlooking Tauranga’s harbour and Mount Manganui.

But we’re here for the tractors. “There is four that I use – and another couple,” say Des, who has been using Massey Fergusons all of his life since his dad traded an Allis Chalmers for 1958 MF 35.

“My first job away from home was a MF 35, my second job up at Omanawa – the guy had a Dexter, which is really a blue Fergy,” laughs Des. “No Shhhh don’t’ tell anybody that!”

He was pig farming in Katikati for 14 years “and my boss there had a MF 35 there too”.

Today Des has partly filled his property with shipping containers after a fire tore through farm buildings in January 2014. It burnt out two Fergy 35 tractors and four Triumph cars. “And my Fergy conversion – the tyres were burnt, steering wheel and carburettor.”

Des got his conversion re-built and fixed up and went shopping to replace what he’d lost. He found a Fergy in Matamata, stamped 25.11.1956 on the side of the block – making it a Grey and Gold model. This is his baby. Although he has a July 56 model down in the shed too.

“They are known as a Grey and Gold as they distinguish the difference of the last Fergy 28s to the 35s. And Mr Harry Fergusson painted them grey and gold.”

The grill isn’t the original grey colour “but many men around the world think like me and have painted their tractor’s grills gold too,” says Des.

He’s shifted the side badge to the bonnet “because I can’t find a bonnet badge yet”. The rest is original “as far as I know”.

“It’s my main firewood splitting tractor,” say Des. “The wood splitter goes on her and I do about 60m3 of wood a year.”

Des says the Fergusson 35 is the same as the Massey Fergusson 35 – same motor, gearbox, hydraulics, with a few minor improvements on the later ones.

“But the Grey and Gold 35 is worth probably twice as much as a red-and-grey – only because of a bit of paint.” His Grey and Gold also has a winch attached “for towing 40 foot shipping containers up the drive”.

Why shipping containers? “I only had the contents of my workshop insured, so after the fire I had no funds to rebuild so the brain twigged that I should get these containers.”

Des now has several on his property – pulled and winched into place by his tractors “plus help from my nephew’s digger”. He uses them for workshops, firewood and storing tractors and equipment.

Des also has 130 Triumph motor cars – “they kept coming in so I kept building for them, but we’ll talk cars another day”.

His conversion – he calls a Triumphant Massey Fergusson, which is 2.5 litre, six cylinder, twin-carbs and 106hp – he uses for going on Tauranga Vintage Machinery Club treks.

“Before the fire it was on duals, so it lost six tyres, the steering wheel disintegrated, one of carburettors melted.”

He rebuilt it. It’s 12 inches longer with the six-cylinder Triumph motor Des installed. “Being a Triumph enthusiast I have a few spare motors. I’ve made two brackets and pushed the mudguards out, which gave room for a twin seat and seatbelts, so Alma can come on the treks as well.”

They can also have a cup of tea and bicky en route with Des placing a chilli bin at the rear. The front cab windscreen he’s fitted is off a Triumph Herald – and he’s attached a front carry tray, which drops down to carry light loads.

“It still has a Fergy back-end so it’s low-geared but it has so much more power. We go on club treks and it’s about another 10-15km/hr faster on the road,” says Des. “It still gets used as a farm tractor too, but it’s a dream to drive on the road.”

Des spends an hour or two weekly on his tractors then he’s back to being ‘different’, either making or fixing or converting something to suit the purpose. “I can do a 100-hour week if things go wrong.”

So where has the passion for Fergys and Triumphs come from? “There’s no real reason, but in Tauranga the Massey Fergusson agent also sold Triumphs – they’re both British brands.

“My dad bought his Fergy in town, and a Vanguard car. Then I bought a second-hand Triumph from the same shop – that’s the way it went.”

He has another MF 35, which was damaged in an on-land accident, he bought from an insurance company. “It goes good and came with brand news tyres on the front. I’ve put a new bonnet on it.”

Another tractor came from an auction at Matamata. “This is just an everyday reliable Massey Fergusson, MF 35 – six forward gears, two reverse speeds and a live drive.

“I’m not going to down a 28 – but compared to a 28 the Fergy 35, when it came out it was a huge engineering step up, with low and high ratio, live hydraulics and live PTO,” says Des, who we believe will be found under the bonnet of a tractor for many years to come.


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