A nuclear engineer raised in the big city miles from the nearest farm, rebuilt and modified a superb corral of classic Cub Cadet tractors, and garnered 5.5 million views on YouTube?
Cub Cadets were introduced in 1961 by International Harvester (IH) as heavy-duty, compact garden tractors for rural homeowners. Initially, suburbia was not the market. Basically, Cub Cadets were manufactured from parts already proven on American farms, i.e., they were originally scaled down Farmall Cub tractors made (1961-1981) in Louisville, Kentucky. Cub Cadets were extremely tough—vastly distinct from the distant lineage now queued on Home Depot lots.
“The components were rugged, and that’s why they’re still in use today,” Smith describes. “They have a differential transmission that’s equal to an automobile transmission in terms of its size and construction. They’re not built like a lawnmower. As opposed to lawn tractors, Cub Cadets were called garden tractors, and the name tells the true difference.”
“In about 2010, I started buying and restoring tractors. I got on the internet and saw a lot of modified Cub Cadets, and I got really interested in a guy who built a motor grader. By that point, the internet had reached the place where you could get all the DIY needed to learn. I kinda dove in. I’d taken wood and metal shop class in high school, but now I could watch videos of guys cutting metal and welding, and copy what I saw.”
Going full-throttle on a rural, East Coast property after retirement in 2017, Smith restored and modified a 15-vehicle fleet (almost all complete engine rebuilds and wear-component replacements) composed of Cub Cadets manufactured from 1967-1976.
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