Kinze's "5050 Deere" Catches Eye Of Deere Executives

Kinze's "5050 Deere" Catches Eye Of Deere Executives REPOWERED EQUIPMENT Repowered Equipment 22-6-29 Here's a one-of-a-kind Deere tractor that was enough of an enigma to make Deere sit up and take note. The Deere "5050", as it's called, is a late 1960's Deere 5020 2-WD repowered and dressed up by Kinze Power Products. "It's very sharp," says Jim Spaid, repower manager of the Williamsburg, Iowa, company. "Sharp enough, apparently, to threaten Deere. We did it just for something to do, to make it the way we felt it should have been built in the first place. We never in-tended to build them to sell." The tractor, which Kinze bought for a parts tractor in 1989, was originally powered with a 531 cu. in. Deere diesel rated at somewhere between 125 and 140 hp. The engine, at some point, threw a rod. Kinze workers repowered the tractor with an 855 cu. in, 400 hp Cummins diesel. The tractor still has the original trans-mission and clutch. Besides putting a lot more horses under the hood, Kinze also made some striking cosmetic changes. For example, they fitted it with a 40 series cab off a 1979 model tractor. They also installed a hood off a Deere 8850. Then they made up decals for the tractor calling it a "5050" Deere. When it was finished, the company began taking it to a few shows and parades. That's when Deere got wind of the tractor. "We got a letter from a Deere executive suggesting we not build any more of the tractors," says Spaid. "We'd never intended to and so it never went any farther than that." As for the tractor: "We keep it around as sort of a conversation piece and to take it to a few parades every now and again." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Kinze Repower Products Inc., P.O. Box 806, Williamsburg, Iowa 52361 (ph 319 668-1300; fax 9087).

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