The Jim Ludwig Collection
Jim Ludwig is picky about tractors, and that’s a compliment.
You see it almost immediately at Ludwig Family Farms. There’s a theme to the collection, and every tractor seems to have a reason for being there. Jim has spent years chasing factory open stations, narrow-fronts, rare combinations, and even a few ideas Deere never built.
More important, he wants them done right.
Alex, our creative content producer, and I recently spent a day with Jim in Lanark, Illinois. Chris and Justin Mason invited us out to see the collection. I knew going in that it had a pretty serious reputation, but I still wasn’t prepared for what we found.
I’ve seen a lot of restored tractors over the years. Plenty look great from 20 feet away, then start giving up little details when you get closer. Jim’s tractors don’t.
These are some of the nicest restorations I’ve ever laid eyes on. The paint is beautiful, but that’s only the start. Look at the hardware, castings, decals, weights, plumbing, and period-correct details. That’s where the quality really shows. Most of the restored tractors in Jim’s collection came through Mark Colberg’s shop in Freeport, Illinois. Mark’s attention to detail is frankly ridiculous, and I’m 100 per cent here for it. He notices the little things most people would never think to check, and it shows everywhere you look.
So why sell them?
There really isn’t a dramatic story behind it. Jim is 75, and he knows managing a collection like this isn’t going to get any easier with time. His family doesn’t share quite the same passion for these tractors, either. So, rather than leave them with a huge job someday, Jim would rather handle it himself, on his terms.
I think there’s something pretty neat about that. He’ll get to see what the tractors bring and, hopefully, where many of them end up. With as many years as Jim has spent in this hobby, I suspect he’ll know quite a few of the people bidding on them, too. In some ways, November 20 may feel as much like a reunion as an auction.
And for Jim, the best part is that when these tractors leave Ludwig Family Farms, Jim will get to see them start making memories somewhere new. I think that’s pretty cool!
Before that happens, though, I wanted to show you a few that really stuck with me. Quite a few have nicknames too, courtesy of Chris and Justin Mason.
The Chihuahuas
Chris and Justin Mason nicknamed these two the Chihuahuas, and it fits.
They’re a 4030 and 4230 with Sound-Gard cabs and factory narrow fronts. Both have the stance of something much bigger and angrier. Add the duals, weights, and all that green iron, and they have serious big tractor energy.
They look like they’ll eat your lunch, but at 80 and 100 horse respectively, I promise you they won’t.
That’s where the Chihuahua name comes in. There’s plenty of bark, plenty of attitude, but not much bite! Still, they’re exactly the kind of tractors that explain Jim Ludwig’s collection. Deere built them this way, but very few buyers ordered them. Most farmers had moved on to wide fronts by then.
Jim went looking for the oddballs because he thought they were neat. And from where I’m sitting, he’s right!
The Pulling Tractors
These are the fun ones. Jim’s been a tractor pulling fan since he was a kid, and when the opportunity presented itself, he and Mark Colberg built a couple of farm stock tractors. Nothing real exotic per se, just something that Jim could take to some local fairs and have fun with during the summers.
This 4030 has a turbocharged 414 from a combine (likely a late 9400 or a 9410) stuffed under the hood. It’s been worked over a little, and it’ll hold its own in the class he pulls it in. It’s not quite perfect, but the smiles per gallon more than make up for a little bit of rust on the fenders.
The other looks fairly innocent too. It’s a naturally aspirated 329 just like it would have had when it came out of the factory. Mark Colberg did a little work on the pump, but in the 10,000 pound non-turbo class, it needed a little more oomph. I mean, 80-something horse isn’t going to stack up against a 966 that’s been put on a diet and packs a hot little 414.
So they got creative.
Now, for the record, there’s no scandal here. The rules never said Jim couldn’t use nitrous oxide (this isn’t nationally sanctioned pulling, so rules about pressurized bottles don’t really apply), and the guys he pulls against know it’s there. It simply adds another layer of personality to a neat tractor in a collection that could have been very serious.
I like that Jim still made room for tractors built to go have fun.
The Cover Girls
If there are two tractors most closely tied to Jim Ludwig’s name, these may be the ones. The 4630 and 4240 have landed on magazine covers and centerfolds, including features in Heritage Iron. They’ve also spent plenty of time at shows around the country. These are the tractors people recognize, and it’s pretty easy to see why.
Both are striking examples of the open-station theme Jim chased for years. They also show the level of finish that became a trademark of his collection. Some restorations photograph well, then lose something when you stand beside them.
These hold up from every angle.
The Restomods
Jim also has a creative streak.
The best examples are a 4030 and a 4250 that you could never order from Deere in quite this form.
After a full-blown restoration, the 4030 became a two-and-a-half-year project. Nearly cast surface was worked smooth from stem to stern. The weights, frame rails, engine, wheel weights, axle housings, and quick hitch all got the treatment. I’ll bet that if they’d had a way to collect all of the cast dust they’d removed from that tractor, they could’ve probably recast it into another suitcase weight!
Run your hand across those parts and they feel almost like sheet metal. It’s wildly unnecessary, which is probably why I like it.
Then there’s the 4250 narrow-front 4-post. Deere never offered that configuration in the 50-Series. Jim thought it would be cool, though, so he and Mark Colberg did the engineered a way to bring it to life. Sometimes that’s reason enough.
Earl’s Tractor
The farm hand with the longest tenure at Ludwig Farms is a man named Earl. He recently turned 85, and this 4040 is his favorite. And since he was there with us part of the day, I sat down on the bench in Jim’s shop and asked, “What’s special about that tractor to you, Earl?”
As it turned out, there wasn’t any complicated explanation.
“It’s a nice driver,” he told me, “and for a guy who doesn’t get around quite as well as he once did, it’s easy to climb on to. And I just kinda like it.”
Basically, it just does what a tractor should do and doesn’t really make a production of it. Sometimes a collection like this can start to feel almost museum-like. Earl’s 4040 is a good reminder that these machines are still tractors. People drove them, worked with them, and formed opinions about them. And at the end of the day, Earl’s opinion was that this one just feels right.
The Tobacco Tractor
This 4230 is one of my personal favorites, and it’s one of the few tractors here that hasn’t been fully restored.
It’s got big tractor energy for a different reason. It isn’t loaded down with horsepower. It’s loaded down with weight.
That setup made sense in tobacco country, and this was a Kentucky tobacco grower’s tractor. Growers needed traction to pull heavy tobacco wagons out of the field. Power only helps if you can put it to the ground. So, he loaded this one like it was going into battle. Three slabs up front, five outer wheel weights on the rears, plus a heavy cast inner wheel weight on each side, too. This was a ground-pounder.
There’s also something refreshing about seeing an original tractor mixed into a collection this polished. The wear gives it a different kind of character, and I’m sure it’s got stories it could tell. Ah, if only tractors could talk.
A New Chapter
We came to Lanark expecting to see a great group of tractors. The quality still caught us off guard.
Jim Ludwig built this collection with a very specific eye. He chased rare factory configurations, preserved good original tractors, and restored the others to an exceptional standard. He also left room for a few ideas that existed mostly because they made him smile. That’s probably one of my favorite parts of the whole collection.
We’ll be rolling out a full series of short videos from our day with Jim over the next month or two leading up to the auction. Many of these tractors will get their own spotlight, but there’s a few others that I haven’t covered. Stay tuned to our Tractor Zoom social media accounts to see them!
Then, on November 20, the collection will start changing hands, and I’m sure that day will be a little bittersweet for Jim Ludwig. This has been his pride and joy for many years. Still, he gets to see where the tractors go next. They’ll leave Ludwig Family Farms and head into new collections. New owners will show them, drive them, talk about them, and make their own memories. And if I had to guess, Jim will still be an integral part of the new life those tractors get to live.
For a collection built this carefully, that feels like a pretty good next chapter to me!
Here’s the link one more time. Check this collection out; I promise you the eye candy is worth it even if you’re not a bidder!
