WC vs UC

For a long time I have been wonderiing why the UC didn't sell better than it did. There was only one in the area that I knew of,,,,, and I was a junior or senior in high school before I even knew of that one.

A WC usually replaced a team of horses and a lot easier to justify that first tractor purchase, probably more versatile in use.  A UC would have been for an addition for larger operation likely.

Hmmmm! Kinda what I was thinking about the cost of the two,,,,,,,,, and it seemed like they were more patient back then about transferring man-hours vs machine-costs. And I do realize the value of ease of operation of a WC,,,,,,, I started about ten or twelve years old on my dad's 37 WC, which I still have to restore.....

Have to stop and think about what the tractor designs were in the begining...
Big and heavy... Used for busting the ground in the prairies and for belt power like on sawmills and threshing machines etc. Those were built with just one or two speeds. The designs were mostly were for heavy work while the horses did the planting and cultivating and other work. But there was a need for the small tractors, and most were still heavy and / or clumsy. Avery had seemed to have the first real light weight, Allis had the 6-12, 18-30,  Ford made his small fordson tractor, international had their 8-16, 10-20, 15-30,  Case, Dart, Hart Par,  Minneapolis, Twin City, Russel, Wallis were changing to the smaller designs and by the mid 1920's, the heavy mammoths were no longer being built. People started using the tractors more for the jobs horses were still being used for...and by the thirties the companies had changed their tractors in design so they could also accommodate planters and cultivators... and had some 'row crop' tractors mixed with the small heavy tillage tractor designs.  The UC was just an old U allis design in the process of trying to fit the 'row crop' family... and then came the WC which was lighter and cost less and of course less power but fit the small farmers budget.

Gerald J. wrote: ..... instead of taking up a quarter of the farm to feed the horses. Gerald J.

JMHO....The big thing with the UC was, it was never planned as a row crop tractor. It was a stopgap built to compete and capitalize on the success Farmall was having with the Farmall Regular. Allis had entered into the United agreement in 29. They really didn't have a row crop style machine at all at the time. They did however have a good basis for a machine, The U. This also would explain why a UC didn't happen til 1930, and only a handful that year.  They adapted it to get by a while till 33 (34 for practical purposes) with the WC. The UC is not well thought out, and the more time spent on one, the more you'll come to accept it. I think it was a way to gain a little market til the WC was ready to sell.

There is no question that the UC was a "real horse" - try taking off the cylinder head on a UC" - but with the introduction of the WC in our area - Maryland near Baltimore - I cannot believe Pop ever selling a U or UC.   Sold a few M's.  The WC was just what the Dr ordered.  One of the units that MADE Allis Chalmers.
Anyway, for all the excellent reasons given above there was not a demand for the UC in our area.  I can only remember one that we serviced.  BIG!
Good Luck!
Bill Long

Appearances may have helped sales of the WC too.