The man who put front driving wheels on our tractors

Colin Davidson’s remarkable story about developing New Zealand’s first 4WD tractors has finally been told on television.

The 93-year-old Southlander was given a lengthy opening segment in an April Seven Sharp story on TVNZ, organised by Rural Contractors New Zealand to which he has had a long association.

Colin’s achievements first came to light in a self-published book, Innovative Contracting, which tells the story of how he came to develop our first 4WD tractors.

He wrote: “Ever since I was a youth working on farms, I’d watched the front wheels of tractors being pushed through soft ground, dropping into the hollows and at times being sledged along.

“I reasoned that the tractor could do its work more efficiently with all wheels driving.”

He started working as a rural contractor in 1956, soon bringing in his brother Graeme and other staff.

Much of the work was ploughing or breaking in hill country for new farms.

Colin bought a new Massey Ferguson 65 from Jack Johnstone at JJ Ltd in Invercargill.

“At that time there were no 4WD tractors on the market.”

He’d heard of one Italian brand which made a 4WD conversion kit but it was for light tractors and not suited to tough New Zealand conditions.

He bought a second-hand front differential unit from General Motors and fitted it to the MF 65 and later MF1100s.

“We started ploughing and the 4WD was a great success. It could climb around the hills and through the swamp areas and could push and pull a lot more,” Colin said.

Soon Colin was fitting 4WD to other contractors’ and farmers’ tractors. In all he converted 110 of them, working with JJ Contracting, as the franchisee for Massey Ferguson. Many were sold in Southland, but some went as far as the North Island.

Film footage of the early 4WDs was shot by JJ Ltd to encourage sales, some of which feature in the Seven Sharp story.

Massey Ferguson factory representatives came from the United Kingdom more than once to inspect the tractors but it took some years before the company was producing its own 4WD machines.

Former JJ Ltd Managing Director Dave Jones told Seven Sharp that what Colin Davidson did was revolutionary.

“I think most of the world was staggered to see what he did and all they could do was follow suit.”

There is now a Colin Davidson Room at the Central Southland Machinery Club in Winton which honours his 4WD and wider contribution.

He’d become a Southland representative to the New Zealand Contractors’ Federation and helped form a National Agricultural section in 1967, which would later become Rural Contractors New Zealand.

He served as its first chairman and was on the section for 21 years, meeting with many government ministers including prime ministers Keith Holyoake, Norman Kirk, Bill Rowling and Robert Muldoon.

He came up with an idea still helping contractors today – a cost escalation clause for agricultural contracts at a time of high inflation and fuel/wage costs increasing.

Colin also took up flying in the late 1960s and used his Cessna to travel to contracting jobs, as well as transport live deer from Stewart Island to his farm at Dipton.

He later moved to Invercargill with his wife Valerie and set up a business manufacturing such things as mole ploughs and digger buckets. Valerie also took on being secretary of the Southland branch of Rural Contractors New Zealand for 12 years. Both her and Colin had their work recognised by Life membership.

Colin retired in 2001, and today he lives in an Invercargill rest home. At last count his Seven Sharp story had enjoyed more than 5,000 views on the Rural Contractors New Zealand Facebook page.