Photos : The Big Bud 747, The “World’s Largest Farm Tractor”

The Big Bud 747 – also known as 16V-747 Big Bud – built around 1977, remains the “World’s Largest Farm Tractor”. 

The 36,000 pounds tractor is about twice the size of many of the largest production tractors in the world.

Its eight 8-foot-tall tyres made by United Tire Company of Canada also weigh as much as a conventional farm tractor.

Partially retired in 2009, Big Bud 747 returned to farm in 2020 after getting replacement tyres from Goodyear. 

The Big Bud 747, also known as 16V-747 Big Bud, is a large, 14 feet tall custom-made farm tractor built by the Northern Manufacturing company in 1977 at a cost of $300,000.

Billed by the owners and exhibitors as the “World’s Largest Farm Tractor”, the 36,000 pounds tractor is about twice the size of many of the largest production tractors in the world. Its eight 8-foot-tall tyres also weigh as much as a conventional farm tractor.

Powered by a 24-liter Detroit Diesel engine, the 1,100 horsepower tractor was used on the Williams Brothers’ farm in Chouteau County to pull an 80-foot cultivator, covering 1.3 acres per minute at a speed up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h).

After United Tire Company of Canada, which made the tractor’s custom 8-foot (2.4 m) tyres went bankrupt in 2000, the tractor was partially retired from regular work in 2009, and to move the Big Bud 747 to museums.

The Big Bud 747 returned to the Williams Brothers farm near Big Sandy, Montana, in 2020, after its original eight-foot tall construction tyres were replaced with Goodyear LSW1400/30r46 tyres, with new rims provided by the Williams Brothers to fit them.

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