Early Newgren Info

8 Comments

1. BarryJanuary 9, 2018 at 12:29 PM

   This is a great find. Interestingly, the same misstatement about a button on the dash to raise/lower the lift appears here too. It showed up in the first press release and seems to have been repeated several times. The Love Lift that Newgren sold at first and the later Newgren designed always had a control lever between the seats. The lift pictured is the Love design. There were minor changes made by Newgren for their version, so I date the picture from around 1947. Many of the equipment items list, including the corn sheller used the belt pulley. You can see a sheller and elevator in action in this Willys Jeep Reunion video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hKKmOBRCbE&feature=youtu.be
2. MattJanuary 9, 2018 at 2:26 PM

   Coffee and Jeeps, this is cool. This type of 3pt lift is on my wish list. Under-side mounting, so you retain the use of the back seat. The switch I did from MB's to CJ's a while back is for the amount of toys, uh, "tools" you can install on these Jeeps.
3. BobJanuary 9, 2018 at 3:32 PM

   This is cool. Great info. I’m going to have to download this and print it out.
4. David EilersJanuary 9, 2018 at 5:43 PM

   Thanks for the info Barry!
5. Allan KnepperJanuary 9, 2018 at 9:52 PM

   Great stuff ! As an old Iowa and now Wisconsin farm boy, I love all the agricultural uses for the Willys. I must further elaborate on corn picking.......corn shelling ......corn grinding. Yes, Dave, I doubt there was ever any kind of mounted corn picker that would attach directly to the Willys as they do on many older tractors. More common would have been a simple one row pull behind corn picker powered by the PTO shaft. I don't think it would handle a two row picker. After the corn was picked, it was common to run the corn thru a corn sheller. This would be a separate unit that sat on the ground behind the Willys. It would be powered with the flat belt pulley. The result was shelled corn and separate corncobs. Barry......I loved the video with all the implements and attachments. The unit that was processing the corn with the flat belt pulley and dumping it into the elevator was actually a corn grinder. This would grind the "whole kernel" corn into ground corn which could then be fed primarily to chickens. Hope all of this was not too corny !! Allan
6. David EilersJanuary 9, 2018 at 11:27 PM

   Allan, Aw shucks, that wasn't too corny. You cut to the kernel of my question. Much appreciated. I guess all my farming experience growing up in a Seattle suburb is really starting to show, lol. We didn't need too much machinery to farm our 15' x 30' garden. And, the last think Mom would have tolerated was a jeep rolling through her garden :-) - Dave
7. BarryJanuary 10, 2018 at 12:48 AM

   Allen, thanks for the correction. Every spring John Ittel rolls out his fleet of farm jeeps for the Rally demo. If you really want to see - and experience - what the Farm Jeep was about you need to see the show. And John will even let you operate things. I have an article in the Fall issue of the Dispatcher called the Making of the Farm Jeep. I would have loved to have been able to include the picture of the lift. The second article, mostly about the changes from the Love to Newgren design will be in the winter issue. In the coming months Clint Dixon will be covering the Monroe lift. I'm hoping to hear a lot of feedback and stories - and corrections. Fun stuff.
8. Bill NorrisJanuary 10, 2018 at 6:19 PM

   Dave, This is a really cool find! Here is a link to an article with videos on John Ittel's farm last June. https://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/a-tiny-farm-jeep-gathering-in-rural-ohio-was-the-greate-1795833702 IF you haven't been, its a great time. Fun to watch Jeeps perform tasks they were meant to do. If you bring a Jeep that has a pto or a 3-point, he will let you put it to work. Barry, thanks for all your help with The Dispatcher. Certainly have learned a lot from you and Clint.