The Victorian border town of Nyah houses an impressive collection of vintage Ford tractors which gives an insight into Australia’s agricultural history
Ford machinery has been a lifelong passion for Ron Dehne.
His first job at age 16 was at Ford dealership Arnoldt & Greenwood in the northern Victorian town of Kerang and says he has “always been Ford cars, Ford this and Ford that”.
Fast forward 60 years and Ron is the owner of more than 110 Ford tractors, now housed in an impressive collection which is open to the public.
“We’ve got all the Fords from 1915 right up to 1992,” he says.
“There’s probably still maybe 20 or 30 tractors to fill the gaps, but we have got most of them up to the early 1980s.”
While Ron’s hometown of Kerang is not far from the collection’s permanent site in the border town of Nyah, the years in between have involved plenty of travel and these stories are intertwined with the tractor collection growing.
“We bought our first Ford County because my wife comes from Tasmania and we ended up with 140 acres over there,” Ron says.
“We did take a dozer over and flatten that but then needed a tractor.
“We moved up to Alice Springs in 1985 and lived there for 30 odd years and the plan was just to collect all the Counties.
“I ended up with most of them, but then things changed and we ended up living back in Victoria.
“I don’t know what happened but another 100 tractors seemed to turn up from somewhere.”
Working around the oil and gas fields while based in Alice Springs – jobs which he admits paid well – meant money was available to indulge his passion of collecting the tractors which took his fancy.
Nowadays, monitoring the internet for online listings along with clearing sales has proven a fruitful hunting ground as Ron aims to fill in the gaps of his collection.
Ford tractors are very much the focal point, however the collection also includes plenty of old Chamberlain tractors – a nod to the Australian-made brand which was also immortalised through the ‘world’s biggest tractor’ sculpture in Western Australia.
Special finds
All the tractors within Ron’s collection tell their own story while also contributing to what he believes is Australia’s largest privately owned Ford tractor collection.
The Ford County range is a major part of this, honouring the model which was a four-wheel drive conversion of Ford tractors by County Commercial Cars in England.
This collaboration continued until production ceased in 1983, making them particularly sought after by collectors.
“Some of the Counties are basically only in the UK, and some of the tractors we’ve got are the only ones in Australia,” Ron says.
“If you want to see more, you’ve got to go to the UK or those sorts of places and the collectors have got them all over there.
“About five or six years ago, we brought four tractors in from the UK and they’re all models which you won’t find here.
“One of them, which is a 1474 County, had only six of them made.”
Ron took two of his tractors to last year’s Wimmera Machinery Field Days in western Victoria, where they were a popular attraction.
One of these was an 1164 TW County, a 116hp tractor produced in the 1970s and which offers a 6.6L, six-cylinder diesel Ford engine.
The other was an FW-35, manufactured in Victoria in the late 1980s and offering users a 195hp engine, again at 6.6L and six-cylinder diesel.
The specific tractor he took to Wimmera also holds a unique place within the model’s history.
“There was 39 of them built and I’ve got two of them,” Ron says.
“That one is actually number one and the other one I’ve got is number two out of 39 – I’m pretty lucky to have that.”
Ron’s comprehensive collection also includes a complete set of the Ford Versatile tractors, along with “a few other odd things”.
Sharing passion
It was only in 2023 that Ron decided to open the doors for the public to visit his collection.
It is open from Thursdays to Sundays, although Ron says out-of-town visitors are welcome on other days if he is available.
The entry cost also includes “tea or a coffee and a biscuit”, meaning visitors get a personal and welcoming experience that is about more than just entry.
Ron says the first impression from tractor enthusiasts is one of impressed surprise, both at the scale of the collection and the individual units within it.
“The way the tractors are set up is you walk through a door and the reaction is ‘wow’ because people just haven’t seen them,” he says.
“Straight away you see four rows of tractors and then there’s another four behind that.
“All the way around the walls our crazy daughter put all these tractor jokes everywhere, so you spend a lot of time reading them while having a cup of tea.
“There are all sorts of old Ford stories and you can do lots of reading.
“You can easily spend a good couple of hours there.”
Other items such as 19th century washing machines and a collection of windmills – one of which is being set up to pump water for visitors to see – provides further interest and means a visit to Ron’s collection also provides a broader snapshot into a bygone era.
Ron also has a golf buggy, which is available for visitors with mobility issues to use while browsing the collection.
It is a passion project, and one which Ron’s family also shares and means the collection is going to live on for many years to come.
As for selecting a favourite tractor, Ron’s joking answer of “the blue and white one” shows the love he has for the entire brand.
Ron Dehne’s Ford tractor collection is located at 2658 Murray Valley Highway in Nyah, with standard opening hours of 10am and 4pm between Thursday and Sunday.