The May/June 2024 issue of Antique Power magazine is available in our gift shop and will be available in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands soon. Featured on the cover is Dave Preuhs’ New Hart-Parr.

Serendipity

Dave Preuhs rescued the first “New Hart-Parr” tractor he ever saw.

text by Chad Elmore • photos by Brad Bowling, unless noted

While some collectors will spend years hunting for a specific antique tractor, others are lucky to have rare machines simply show up in their mailbox. Such was the case for Hart-Parr aficionado Dave Preuhs.

“I knew that Hart-Parr made an early water-cooled tractor in the late teens rated at 12-25 that they called a New Hart-Parr, but I had never seen one or even heard of one that still existed,” Preuhs said. “Then, one day in 1988 I received a letter from a fellow from Wabeno, Wisconsin. He wanted info on a Hart-Parr that he wanted to restore.”

Then as now, Preuhs was known in collector circles. He has written several historical articles about Hart-Parr tractors, and, as one of the founders of the original Le Sueur County Pioneer Power Show in 1974, the man from Wabeno figured Preuhs was the fellow who could shed some light on what he had.

“He included the serial number of the tractor, which was 8474, and the minute I saw that number I knew it was one of the early New Hart-Parrs,” Preuhs said. “I helped him with some information and some parts, but I knew a lot of the pieces were going to be hard to find. I told him if he would ever want to sell it, I would be interested. We communicated back and forth every year until one day in 1998 he said he wasn’t going to get it restored and he would sell it. He never got going on it, and it was just sitting under a lean-to.”

There was no way Preuhs was going to allow more time to elapse. On Halloween, he and his wife, Carol, hooked up a trailer and left southern Minnesota for a tiny northeastern Wisconsin town. They picked up that rare survivor from the early days of tractor development—and it was the first New Hart-Parr tractor Preuhs had ever seen.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the May/June 2024 issue of Antique Power magazine!

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May/June 2024 Antique Power

Serendipity

Dave Preuhs rescued the first “New Hart-Parr” tractor he ever saw.

text by Chad Elmore • photos by Brad Bowling, unless noted

Other articles in this issue include:

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