Historic McCormick Crawler Tractor Now in the Exhibition Hall

The 1940 model McCormick Crawler Tractor, which was produced in the United States between 1938 and 1944 and brought to Turkey in 1951 with Marshall Plan aid, is no longer used as a work machine but as a historical artifact.

It is stated that the Marshall Plan, which was announced to the world by the United States Secretary of State George C. Marshall in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, was seen as aid at the time, but today it is a method implemented to revive the wrecked economy of Europe. This crawler tractor, which was brought to Turkey as aid 73 years ago and used until 13 years ago, is now exhibited in the garden of the old agricultural equipment exhibition hall in the Faculty of Agriculture of Adnan Menderes University as an agricultural vehicle that has become a thing of the past.

Brought to the Nazilli Cotton Research Institute 73 years ago as part of the aid known among the public as ‘Marshall Aids’, this crawler tractor could not be repaired when its piston and liner burst. The 84-year-old crawler tractor, which became unusable due to both excessive fuel consumption and the inability to repair, was taken to the museum after completing its function.

Mehmet Kalkınç, an agricultural engineer working at Adnan Menderes University Faculty of Agriculture, stated that the history of the tractor was quite interesting and said, “This tractor, which was given to Turkey as Marshall aid in 1051, was allocated to Aydın. After being used for many years at the Nazilli Cotton Research Institute, it was brought to Koçarlı in 1969. It was used here to process approximately 2500 acres of land. The tractor had a system that operated with gas and continued to operate with diesel after warming up. It was used in the agricultural sector for years. Now it is exhibited as an old agricultural tool and we use it to tell young people about the stages Turkish agriculture has experienced.” – AYDIN