A little Farmall gold

My Farmall 826 Gold Demonstrator.  I bought this 1970 Farmall 826 from a farm sale in 2006 as I needed a bucket tractor on my farm. I noticed from setting outside it’s whole life the red paint was so thin I could see a gold undercoat showing through but gave it no thought. After getting it home and showing the picture to friends, one said he thought it was a Gold Demonstrator tractor. I had never heard of them, so I bought an “International Harvester Tractors 1955-1985 book by Ken Updike” and learned that in 1970 the IH company started the demonstrator program with their models 544, 656, 826, 1026 and 1456. They painted the Demos Gold and let farmers test them on their farms and if they liked the tractor and bought it, the company would overspray the gold with IH red when it was sold.

So, during my first “off season” period on the farm I cleaned up the old 826 and repainted it back to its gold demonstrator colors leaving the original gold paint on the undersides of the sheet metal for proof that it is a Gold demo Tractor. Sadly, it has been a working tractor these 19 years I have owned it so even being kept in the barn it is showing the 19 years of use on the farm.

David Leiber
El Dorado, Kansas

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