2022 2022 SPRING CLASSIC And that’s not an understatement. Sackett GONE FARMIN’ explained that both Harrison’s and Toro’s restorations ultimately benefited each other, with Sackett and his crew using parts from Toro’s machine to cast replacement parts for Harrison’s TO-RO, and vice versa. Sacket t said Harrison’s tractor features Today, these tractors are incredibly rare, with few surviving into the modern age and even fewer in running condition. However, this 1919 Toro coming from Phillip Harrison is even rarer in its own right, as it was purchased new by his great grandfather, Edward Smith, upon his return from World War I in 1919 and has remained in the family ever since. Harrison said his great grandfather used the tractor on the family farm in Iowa up until his grandfather moved to the farm with his grandmother after World War II. “He moved on the farm and saw him, my great grandfather, using it in the garden at the time,” Harrison said. Sometime in the 1950s, Harrison said the Toro was parked behind the tractor shed on the family’s farm, and it sat there for approximately 60 years until Harrison came across it in about 2010, when he returned to the farm to visit family. Though showing its age, the Toro hadn’t just been lef t there to waste away. “I talked to my grandfather, and he said, ‘Oh, that thing. I’ve been turning the engine over every six months or so for the last 60 years,’” Harrison said. In researching the tractor, Harrison said he quickly learned of its remarkable rarity, noting that while Toro owns one, it doesn’t run, and that he hasn’t really found much more than a single running example at auction. Harrison soon began to toy with the idea of having the tractor restored as a piece of family history, and, not long after, Harrison had Lee J. Sackett pick up the tractor for a full restoration. Initially, Sackett—a restoration artist out of Waltham, Minnesota—thought the a rare and coveted original Donaldson air filter, which is believed to be among the earliest air filters created by Frank Donaldson, who had been with Toro from the start as an engineer for the Bull Tractor Company. “The Donaldson people wanted to have it, but, of course, it needed to stay with the tractor,” Sackett said. While the original radiator was too rotted out to salvage, Sacket t said they went to great lengths to ensure its custom-built replacement was correct, with the core built overseas and the final product completed in the honeycomb radiator design originally used by Toro. Likewise, the engine was completely overhauled, all of the original nuts, bol ts and washers were removed, and a new fuel tank replaced the aging one. “It ’s as close to a brand new TO-RO tractor as you’ ll ever find,” he said. “We actually did more to this one than the one that Toro has because Toro was going to put theirs in a museum and never planned on running it again.” Sackett said the one thing they did that differed from the original TO-RO was to bond tire tread material to the steel wheels, mostly as a safety precaution but also to make it easier to move around and more drivable. “We wanted to make sure we did it right, and Phillip was on board with that,” he said. “And with the guidance of the historians at Toro, we really had an inside scoop on all that stuff to try and make it the way that it should be. We even used a colorized photo from some original advertising to put the paint scheme together. We did a lot of research to put this thing together and make it as correct as we could. “We’ve had it around, we’ve taken it to a lot of places, and it sure has garnered a lot of attention. It’s been fun for us to show off some of our best work on something so unique.” MECUM.COM // 7 GONE FARMIN’ ToroFeatureV2.indd 7 40 MECUM AUCTIONS 2/9/22 10:47 AM
