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Wednesday, September 5, 2012 1937 - 2012 · Celebrating 75 Years Orono Weekly Times - 11 Cockshuts are all the rage at this year's fair If he had the room Andy Dumouchel of Newcastle says he would own as many Cockshutt tractors he could find, but as it is, he only has room for the three he currently owns. The Cockshutt is the featured tractor of the Orono Heritage Tractor Club at this year's Orono Fair. Dumouchel's collection started with the Cockshutt which was the main tractor on his dad's dairy farm up until 1996. This wasn't just any Cockshutt tractor; this was the Cockshutt 35 Deluxe. His relationship with Cockshutts began with an earlier model, the first tractor on the farm, the used Cockshutt 60 which his sister bought for their dad. "When my oldest sister began working she bought my dad a tractor to ease his workload," Dumouchel told the Orono Times in an interview last week. The Model 60 which was distributed by Cockshutt from 1942 to 1948 was manufactured by Oliver in Iowa and was the same as the Oliver 60, with its 2.0 liter four cycle gasoline engine When dairy farming started to pay a bit more, Dumouchel's father went to the local farm equipment dealer which was a Cockshutt dealer, and bought another used Cockshutt because their first one had been such a good working tractor. The new tractor was a Cockshutt 30. This model was the first Cockshutt made at Cockshutt family's Brantford, Ontario plant, and with its live power take-off, it revolutionized the tractor industry. With live power take-off implements could continue to be operated even when the tractor was no longer moving forward. Gordon Cockshutt drove the first Model 30 off the assembly line on October 7, 1946. It was a two-wheel drive tractor with four forward gears and one reverse gear and had a four cylinder 153.1 cubic inch Buda motor. Cockshutt manufactured their Model 30 until 1957, building a total 37,328 units. In 1956 they introduced the Cockshutt 35 Deluxe, an experimental model painted in a crème colour with red undercarriage, a reverse of their regular paint scheme. This model had a 198 cubic inch Hercules gas engine and a cigar lighter. "That was an exceptional tractor," Dumouchel stated. They were only made in 1956, '57 and for two months in '58, and there were only 1,850 made according to Dumouchel. This was the main tractor used on the family's Alexandria farm in eastern Ontario, 14 miles from the Quebec border. The Cockshutt 35 was used right up until 1996 when Dumouchel's father gave up dairy farming for cash cropping and died shortly thereafter. One day when Dumouchel went home to visit his mom, she said he should send the old tractor to the scrap yard. "I don't think so," Dumouchel told his mom, he gave her a fair price for it, towed it home and began restoring it. At home Dumouchel took the tractor apart, and as all the metal parts including the body and the back rims were in bad shape they were restored. He didn't touch the engine or the transmission as they were still in good shape. Once the tractor was fully restored Dumouchel began showing it at the local fairs and pulling in the antique tractor pulls. That was 11 years ago. Six years ago Dumouchel stumbled across a second Deluxe 35, a few miles away at the farm of Billy Adams on the 6th Concession. That tractor has been used in an underground parking garage in Toronto for years to push snow, according to Dumouchel, and when they didn't need it anymore it ended up at Adam's farm and Dumouchel bought it. Four years ago he bought a little Cockshutt 20. What he really wanted was a Deluxe 20, but all he could find was the straight 20, and as he needed a restoration project for that winter he bought it. The walls of Dumouchel's garage at his Morgans Road home are lined with the many trophies and ribbons he has brought home over the past eleven years of tractor pulling. "We do it for the fun and bragging rights," Dumouchel says. Like everything in life there is a trick to getting the most you can out of the limited horse power your tractor has, according to Dumouchel, but he is afraid the fascination with antique tractors and tractor pulls will die out with this generation. Unless there is something done to the antique tractors to interest young people, like flame throwers and remote control steering, Dumouchel is afraid the hobby will disappear. "I hope I'm wrong," he says, "I hope this doesn't happen, but the writing is on the wall." The Orono Heritage Tractor Club will have their antique tractor display on the fairgrounds for the four days of the Fair with the Antique Tractor Pull beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday on the track in front of the grandstand. Andy Dumouchel and his restored Cockshut 35 Deluxe are all spiffed up and waiting for the Orono Fair. Cockshutts are the featured tractor of the Orono Heritage Tractor Club at this year's Fair.