In the fall of 1937, a Deere tractor engineer (named Elmer McCormick, of all things) was sent to New York to ask Dreyfuss to redesign the tractors. He worked fast: In November 1937, he unveiled a wooden mockup of a streamlined Model B.
Dreyfuss' men and the Waterloo engineers perfected the styled design that was used on John Deere tractors with only minor changes until the New Generation machines of 1960.
Dreyfuss also was responsible for design of many Deere implements, applying his "streamline should be cleanline" philosophy to the 12A combine, among others. Dreyfuss continued to do work for Deere and Co. for many years. In 1956 he recommended to company President William Hewitt that Finnish architect Eero Saarinen should design the new Deere Administrative Center at Moline, Ill.
Raymond Loewy, industrial designer, probably isn't know at all for the work he did for International Harvester Co.
In the mid-1930s, tractor builders were beginning to see the advantages of making their products more attractive by adding streamlined sheet metal. And since Fordson, John Deere and Farmall were in competition for the farmers along with Deering and McCormick, as well as a number of other tractor makers... they had to fight with more than the capabilities of such similar machines, they needed aethetics to help win over the favor of the farmers.
Oliver led the way with the streamlined row crop 70 in 1936. IHC management invited Loewy to design a new line of Farmall tractors then being developed by the company. He spent a couple of years perfecting the design. Loewy's classic styling of the new Farmalls helped make IHC a leader in row crop tractor sales until the 1950s.
Raymond Loewy also designed the new IHC logo with block letters consisting of a lower case "i" superimposed upon an upper case "H." The resulting symbol roughly resembled the front view of a (square-headed) man driving a Farmall tricycle tractor (with square tires). The logo was adopted in 1946 and became famous all over the world as the identifying symbol of International. The standardized dealership buildings with the familiar red central pylon bearing the IH logo and the dealer's name were also Loewy's work.
While looking into IHC tractors, I learned that the Cub was built with the engine offset to the left, and the driver offset to the right, because this gave the driver a better view, and this was given the name “Culti-Vision” by International. That's kinda clever.
You may have heard the names McCormick/Deering, Farmall, and International Harvester Corporation. IHC was the major player in that field during most of the last century. International Harvester Corporation had the right to use all those names.
After several years of trying to kill each other with putting dealerships in towns across the street from each other, JP Morgan managed to get the McCormick and Deering companies to merge with some smaller players into what became known as the International Harvester Corporation. In 1912 antitrust legislation forced IHC to reduce that to one dealer per town. McCormick and Deering became IHC model names. In the 1920’s Farmall joined them.
http://www.farmcollector.com/company-history/tractor-design-raymond-loewy-henry-dreyfuss.aspx
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/my-curbside-classic/my-fieldside-classic-1978-international-harvester-cub-americas-mechanical-mule/
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