THE WORLDS LARGEST TRACTOR

Big Bud 747 is a custom built agricultural tractor and was built in Havre, Montana U.S.A in 1977 by man of vision, Ron Harmon of the Northern Manufacturing Company.  Big Bud was constructed from the ground up for a cost of $300,000.

Its initial purpose was to work on The Rossi Bros Cotton Farms in Bakerfield, California, to pull ripper ploughs to churn up fields to a depth of four feet.

Big Bud 747 works at a rate of one acre every minute whilst motoring along at eight mph...and that's quite a fast ratio of work.

Big Bud  is a sixteen cylinder behemoth powered by a 24.1 liter Detroit V16 92Turbo engine delivering 900hp. It has six forward and one reverse gear driving all of its eight foot tall wheels.

 

"That motor has a potential of up to 1100 horsepower..." said Big Bud's current owner Robert Williams. "...It can handle our biggest equipment at the current setting, so there's no advantage to burning more fuel and putting more stress on the drive-train."

See the Youtube  video of Big Bud below:

 

With hydraulic powered steering and air brakes, similar to those on a semi, and a 1000 gallon diesel tank with a 150 gallon hydraulic reservoir tank, Big Bud is big enough and has the endurance for any job.

Big Bud is 28½ feet long, 14 feet high, 21 feet wide and has a wheel base of 16½ feet.  It weighs in at fortyfive tons with a full diesel and hydraulic oil tank.

The Big Bud 747 Tractor was rebuilt and reconditioned at the end of 1990, after successfully working for many thousands of man hours.  The Tractor at present resides in Montana, where it is apparently still in use today, pulling a huge eighty foot wide plough.  It is owned by The Williams Brothers of  Big Sandy  who's farm is in Chouteau County.

"We've had people from all over the world come to see it..." said Williams "...we welcome visitors, and if it's on a day when it's running in the field, we might even give them a ride."

Big Bud has also been miniaturized and is available in model form from various stockists.  I am very tempted to call the models Baby Buds but will resist it. The image below is of the Toy Farmer  version and represents the 900 Horse Power Big Bud 747 in 1/64 scale.

The model below is a special edition and retails for $88.00 from DaltonsFarmToys.com, click on the image to visit their website.

Also if you shop around the internet including E-bay and Amazon.com you are pretty certain of finding one.  Because my website is only a reference site I don't offer them for sale myself.

More info about BigBud at www.williamsbigbud.com

 

                                                                  

Updated Decemebr 13th 2012