John Deere Cut Them Off — A Montana Repair Shop Built the World’s Biggest Tractor

ohn Deere locked up the only tractor supply a small Montana dealer depended on. So the dealer and his shop foreman built their own — and that Havre shop eventually created the 760-horsepower Big Bud 16V-747, the largest production farm tractor ever built. In 1969, Wagner’s factory was building large four-wheel-drive tractors for exactly one customer: John Deere. For Havre dealer Wilbur Hensler and his shop foreman, Bud Nelson, that meant the supply their business depended on had disappeared. So they built their own. Using leftover Wagner cabs, frames, axle housings, and years of repair-shop experience, Hensler and Nelson created a new tractor and named it after Bud himself: Big Bud. Then, in 1977, California cotton farmers Elmer and Melvin Rossi asked the Montana company for something no manufacturer had ever sold them — a tractor powerful enough to break the hardened ground beneath their 20,000-acre operation. The result cost roughly $300,000. It carried a 16-cylinder Detroit Diesel producing around 760 horsepower, stood approximately 14 feet tall, rode on eight-foot tires, and weighed as much as 135,000 pounds with fuel and ballast. They called it the Big Bud 16V-747. The tractor succeeded. Its manufacturer did not. While the 747 worked season after season, transmissions supplied for Big Bud’s broader tractor lineup began failing and arriving months late. Forty-eight units missed the critical spring selling season. Production stopped, the shutdown cost an estimated $2.9 million, and the dispute grew into a federal court battle that lasted for years. Within five years of completing the world’s largest production farm tractor, Big Bud filed for bankruptcy reorganization. But the 16V-747 outlived the company that built it. After custom eight-foot Goodyear tires were produced in 2020, the giant returned to Montana farmland and pulled an 80-foot plow again — 43 years after it was built. This is the complete story of the repair shop that became a tractor manufacturer, the record-breaking machine that never failed its owners, and the supplier deal that helped bring its maker down. If this story is worth your time, a like helps more people discover it. Subscribe for more documentaries about real people, real machines, and the forgotten history of American farming. Where are you watching from? And have you ever seen a Big Bud, Wagner, Steiger, or Versatile tractor working in the field? Tell me about it below. #BigBud #TractorHistory #AmericanFarming #FarmMachinery #VintageTractor