Howard Stemen

Howard Stemen grew up on a farm near Edgeley, North Dakota. He has always been very mechanically inclined, and in 1964 he got the idea to build his own four-wheel-drive tractor. At the time, four-wheel drives were still somewhat new, and people were experimenting with all kinds of different designs. Some followed the lead of Wagner and Steiger, using rigid axles on a frame that steered in the middle, while others used a rigid frame with steerable axles. The latter is the platform that Howard used. While many tractors that had steerable axles used them both front and rear, Howard’s tractor used only a steerable front axle. The reason being that he used the complete frame and drivetrain from an old FWD snowplow truck. He shortened the wheelbase to 86 inches and modified the frame to suit his needs. In addition to the truck axles, he also used the truck’s original 5-speed transmission/transfercase combination, which had a locking differential to provide positive power to both axles. To power the rig, he used a 331 cubic inch Hemi engine out of a 1950s Chrysler car. He also used the car’s automatic transmission. The torque converter in the automatic basically doubled as a clutch. He also used a power steering system out of a car to provide hydraulic steering for the front axle. 

Howard worked on his tractor in his spare time over the course of two winters, and by the spring of 1966, he had it mostly completed. His uncle operated a machine shop, so Howard had access to several tools that were invaluable in his project, such as a sheet metal brake that he used to form all of the fenders and hood. He welded some 24-inch diameter rims to the truck’s original 20-inch wheels to install 16.9 x 24 tractor tires at all four corners. Altogether, he only spent about $1,000 building it. 

At the time, Howard’s main farm tractor was a D-19 Allis Chalmers, so he painted his own creation Allis Chalmers Persian Orange, with cream-colored wheels to match. While the tractor was now running and driving, he never did use it for fieldwork as he never got around to installing a hydraulic system on it. By the time he had it mostly completed, he had decided that it was already too small for his needs. He did, however, enter it in a few tractor pulls, including the North Dakota State Tractor Pull in 1967, which was held in Page, North Dakota. 

Not really needing to use the tractor for farm work, Howard decided to park it in a building at a farmstead owned by his dad, and there it sat for about ten years. In the late seventies, a large power transmission line was being built, bringing electrical power from the coal-fired power plants of western North Dakota to the eastern part of the state. This line passed right through the farmstead, where the tractor was stored. The foreman for the construction crew happened to see this unique looking tractor parked in the shed and went looking for the owner. He discovered Howard owned it, and after some negotiations, Howard agreed to sell it to him. Even after sitting all those years, with a new battery and some fresh gas down the carburetor, the old Hemi roared to life. The lifters clattered for a little while, but eventually quieted down once the oil pressure got up. He put it in gear and drove it out of the shed that it called home for the past decade. The new owner had it hauled to Glenwood, Minnesota, to a friend’s place, but its final destination would be Los Angeles, California. It’s unknown what happened to the tractor after it left North Dakota. It’s not known if it even made it to California for sure. If it did, is it still there? Perhaps some hot rodder spotted the Hemi and used it in an old roadster. Maybe the original plan was for only the engine to go to California, and the rest of the tractor was left in Minnesota. Unfortunately, we may never know the fate of this one.