Along The Way
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50 Years Young
I did a double-take recently when I spotted this vintage Versatile 400 self-propelled swather knocking down the grass in this overgrown farmyard.
After shooting the photos, and receiving a friendly wave from the operator of the swather, upon arriving home I spent some time researching this Versatile swather.
It dates back to 1970 and was built in Winnipeg by the Versatile company. If you expand the photo and look close, the swather is powered with a 4 cylinder inline gas engine, the norm today diesel engines.
It brought back memories of a time earlier yet when all swathers were pull-types, and my dad who was a farmer at the time purchased one of the first Versatile self-propelled swathers of a vintage earlier that the one pictured here, that swather powered by a V4 Wisconsin Gas engine that sat off to one side on the deck.
Upon receiving delivery of the swather from Versatile, it proved to have major issues with the steering clutches by design, and in the end Versatile took the swather back when the problems could not be sorted out.
Versatile went back to the drawing board, and later on did release a self-propelled swather that did prove to be very successful.
For the record, the swather seen here is a hay swather, the swathers of the same vintage built for swathing grain crops like wheat had wider tables.
Expand the photo for a closer look.....
