On 1/8/2012 3:44 PM, Steve Barker wrote:
....

i agree on most that. I have a '41 hand start model A, I'm pretty sure
it's all American. The '74 110 lawn tractor we have has Jap parts in it.
sigh But the pliers are all American. Who sells the "ceetee" pliers?

Certainly anything before the war was US-built; it's after the 50s/60s
that the cost structure began to shift drastically.

I have a mid-'60s 112; afaik it's all US--it has the Tecumseh engine.

The mid-80s rider has the Kawasaki; the early 70s (guessing, Dad got it
while I was off in VA/TN before coming back and I've not looked it up to
see just when it was bought) S92 rider is also all US w/ the B&S.

As noted, the utility tractor, a mid-90s 990 is typical of the genre
available from any of the name line ag folks whether Case-IH red, NH
blue or JD green. They're all a combination of various Japanese,
Korean, etc., etc., etc., pieces-parts that may or may not be partially
assembled in NA. They're basically no different than Kubota orange in
pedigree.

OTOH, the field tractors from an old 4440 up are US-built and continue
to be for the most part.

But, the bottom line for this thread is that all the major dealers have
these lines of custom-branded products and they're all simply
over-priced for almost everything. I really wonder how they sell enough
to make it worth doing, truthfully. It's kinda' a double-edged sword I
guess. They have to be high because don't have a lot of volume to
support mass production by suppliers and the high pricing limits the
size of market penetration. Unless they were to commit to subsidizing
the lines for a while and try to grow the distribution, it will probably
stay the way it is and I don't see that happening as being at all likely...

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