Not a Car Puzzle #Puzzle1653 - Ransomes MG6

[Otto Puzzell]

Know what it is?

Please, respond below and identify what this is.
As always, detailed answers are greatly appreciated by all. 
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Also, please be sure to check out our other puzzles, and, please post a puzzle of your own if you'd like - the more, the merrier.

Thanks!

[Allemano]

greetings from guido66...
http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=11122.0

[Otto Puzzell]

'twould be something, if this pic was from the same exhibition

[Otto Puzzell]

Gotta farm this one out to the Experts.

[Octavia]

Is it French

[Otto Puzzell]

While it has a certain je ne sais quoi, it is not French, mon frère

[DeAutogids.nl]

It seems derived from a Bulldozer, as it has a steering with levers, as you could find in tanks, skidsteer loaders and bulldozers. Now the construction with the wheel arrangement looks like an old fashioned bulldozer.

The logo at the front seems like that of Nissan, but surely a coincedence?

[Otto Puzzell]

Not a Nissan, and not derived from a 'dozer, though the operation is similar.

[Tom_I]

The logo on the front looks like the London Transport one, used on buses and underground railways.

But I don't think the proportions are quite right. Is this an avenue worth pursuing, or a wrong tree being barked up?

[MG]

Looks like a ditch digger with a Tecumseh engine.   

[Otto Puzzell]

The logo on the front looks like the London Transport one, used on buses and underground railways.

But I don't think the proportions are quite right. Is this an avenue worth pursuing, or a wrong tree being barked up?

You'd be in the right geography...

[Otto Puzzell]

Looks like a ditch digger with a Tecumseh engine.   

Like most tractors, this one could be outfitted to perform a number of tasks, including, I suppose, ditch-digging.

I don't think it's a got Tecumseh engine, but don't know for sure.

[Tom_I]

You'd be in the right geography...

Assuming this slightly enigmatic answer to mean no more than that this machine was British, I set about trawling through British tractor manufacturers, and found that I didn't know many.

Then, for no better reason that the cooling cowl on the engine kept reminding me of the ones used on petrol lawnmowers, I thought of Ransomes, producers of the "Rolls-Royce of lawnmowers", as they used to be called in the UK. That led to a minor breakthrough in finding their MG (market garden) range of tractors/crawlers, first produced in the 1930s. In particular the MG5, introduced in 1948 and shown below, had a striking resemblance to the puzzle machine, but I could only find pictures of it fitted with caterpillar tracks.

But after a bit more research, it seems that two new versions of the subsequent MG6 model (itself introduced in 1953) were marketed from 1956 onwards, intended for industrial use, rather than horticultural. These were designated the ITC (with tracks) and the ITW (4-wheel drive with pneumatic-tyred wheels).

So my guess is that this is the Ransomes ITW industrial tractor. These were powered by a 600-cc, air-cooled, 4-stroke, single-cylinder Sturmey-Archer engine, which propelled the earlier models to a dizzying top speed of 2.25 mph, but apparently the revised transmission of the MG6 and variants allowed speeds up to 4 mph!

[Otto Puzzell]

That was some good, old-fashioned detective work, Tom!   

And shame on MG not solving this one!

[MG]

By gad, sir! You waste even more time online than I do!   


Good job.   

[DeAutogids.nl]

Deeply impressed!