If the Guiness Book of World Records handed out awards for the most knowledgeable young female tractor enthusiast, Rachel Gingell would be the likely recipient. “I’ve loved tractors ever since I was very young, and I’ve spent the past 10 years learning more and more about how they work and what they’re worth,” Gingell says.

Rachel has parlayed that desire for knowledge into an entreprenurial career that includes developing a smart phone app called Tractor Guide. Gingell says the app allows users to quickly discover the year older tractors were manufactured. They do so by entering the model and serial number of the tractor in the app on their iphone or ipad. The app soon shows when that tractor was built. The app is available for just 99 cents from the Apple Store online. A version for Android phones will be available in 2015.

Gingell says the idea for the app came to her while she was attending a farm auction on a bitterly cold day. “I was fumbling through a tractor price guidebook with gloves on and said to myself, ‘there has to be a better way.’ I put together the outline for the app, worked with a designer for layout and a developer to program it.” Now anyone can find the manufactured dates on 12 major tractor brands and 10 lesser brands on their phone. The app is getting good reviews and she’s encouraged by its success.

Rachel is no stranger to tractors, tractor mechanical issues and tractor restoration. At a young age she’d help her dad at his equipment dealership. In junior high, she told her dad she’d used her last $25 in savings to buy half ownership in an old Allis Chalmers tractor. She and her dad worked more than 2 hrs. to load the unresponsive relic with the loader locked to the ground. The owner saw how hard they were working and told Rachel “you can just have it for getting it out of my shed.” Gingell eventually sold the rig for $650. She kept her end of the bargain by paying her dad $25 for hauling the tractor home.

Gingell’s skills go far beyond phone app development. At age 16, she graduated from auctioners school and also attended college. She has a website for fundraising auctions called ‘She Sold It’ that’s doing well. In her spare time she restores old tractors, writes a tractor repair blog, and does videos on tractor repairs. She learned that skill while working with her father, Dan, who’s made tractor repair videos for several years. Over the years Gingell and her dad have sold hundreds of tractors online because of short videos they do on tractors for sale.

Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Rachel Gingell, P.O. Box 38, Metamora, Mich. 48455 (rachelg@farmtractorrepair.com).