The Big Bud 747 or 16V-747 Big Bud is a large, custom-made farm tractor built in Havre, Montana in 1977. It has 1100 horsepower. It is billed by the owners and exhibitors as the "World's Largest Farm Tractor". It is about twice the size of many of the largest production tractors in the world, depending on parameter.
History
The first two Big Bud tractors out of the Havre, Montana plant were the 250-series and were purchased by Leonard M. Semenza of Semenza Farms in 1968 located between Fort Benton, Montana, and Chester, Montana on his 35,000 acre farm. The 747 tractor was originally and built by Ron Harmon and the employees of his Northern Manufacturing Company, at a cost of $300,000. It was made for the Rossi Brothers, cotton farmers of Bakersfield or Old River, California,. It was used there for 11 years, then it was purchased by Willowbrook Farms of Indialantic, Florida. Both farms used it for deep ripping. After a period of disuse, it was purchased by Robert and Randy Williams, of Big Sandy, Montana, within of where it was built, in 1997. It was used on the Williams Brothers' farm in Chouteau County to pull an cultivator, covering per minute at a speed up to. The UnitedTire Company of Canada, which made the tractor's custom tires, went bankrupt in 2000, partially contributing to the decision to stop using the tractor for regular work inJuly 2009, and to move the Big Bud 747 to museums. After its work on the farm, it was displayed at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center in Independence, Iowa. In 2014, the Big Bud 747 was moved to the Heartland Museum in Clarion, Iowa, on indefinite loan from the Williams Brothers; the museum constructed a separate shed for the tractor in 2013. On July 14, 2020, the Big Bud's original 8 foot tall construction tires were replaced with Goodyear LSW1400/30r46 tires, with new rims provided by the Williams Brothers to fit them. The new tires brought the width of the Big Bud to just over 25 feet.
For perspective, many of the largest production tractors such as the John Deere 9630 are about half the horsepower, less than half the ballasted weight, and often use a more standard six cylinderclass 8 truck engine. Extrapolating historical rules of thumb when tractors were sometimes measured by the size of the moldboard plow they could pull, Big Bud 747 would be a 50-plow tractor, though this is no longer a practical convention.
