The January/February 2020 issue of Antique Power magazine will be available in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands soon. Our latest cover tractor is a 1930 Caterpillar Sixty owned by Gene Stuckle. This feature is written and photographed by Candace Brown.

As he walked toward his 1930 Caterpillar Tractor Co. Model Sixty tractor, Gene Stuckle heard thunder rumble and watched storm clouds fill the sky over the wheat fields of his farm in eastern Washington State. On that July day in 2019, he was posing the 21,000-pound crawler out in the open for our Antique Power photo shoot. Visions of its tall exhaust pipe acting as a lightning rod added to the excitement, but Stuckle remained unconcerned. After six decades of flying airplanes, and still an active pilot at age 86, he knows the local weather patterns well. “That storm cell will blow by us. They always do,” he said.

In any case he was about to produce some rumbling of his own. With the energy of a much younger man, Stuckle climbed onto the tractor to start the 4-cylinder, 1,128ci engine. He opened the fuel tank valve, put the transmission into neutral, and disengaged the flywheel clutch. After pouring some gasoline in the priming cups on the intake manifold, he fit the starting bar into a hole in the rim of the flywheel and muscled out the first rotation. Soon the 89-year-old engine came to life.

“You start it on gasoline, and you might run it 10 or 15 minutes. When she gets warmed up, you shut the gas off and turn on the kerosene,” Stuckle shouted over the noise, an authentic sound from the past.

A century earlier on June 24, 1919, the C.L. Best Tractor Co. of San Leandro, California, introduced the black and gold Best 60 Tracklayer, which would evolve into the Caterpillar Sixty. Its combination of reliability, ruggedness, power, and a slow-running 650-rpm engine would make it famous. Excellent for agriculture and unsurpassed at earth moving, the Sixty also revolutionized previously un-mechanized industries, such as road construction, logging, and mining. The machine could haul heavy loads long distances over rough ground, thanks to its durable design and oscillating crawler frames. Important construction projects worldwide used it. The Best 30 Tracklayer appeared two years later, with half the size and power, but still destined for success.

To read more about the 1930 Caterpillar Sixty, pick up a copy of the January/February 2020 issue of Antique Power magazine!

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January/February 2020 Antique Power

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