Overview

Tractor cab production was inevitably a transitory market which lasted over 3 decades. It started life in a small way, on the back of farmers and construction workers wanting shelter from the elements when working on their tractors and earth movers.

As farmers grew more affluent and tractors became more powerful, they began to demand more comfort, and employers sought to improve productivity. Then market growth soared when Health & Safety rules were introduced, demanding more safety, sophistication, and content, to the point where bought-in cabs approached 20% of the production cost on small tractors. For two decades the industry enjoyed a sustained boom.

When legislation eventually went Europe-wide, the multinational tractor giants saw a major marketing opportunity to develop the styling, and influence the design of integral cabs, to increase their market share. Saloon car comfort, built-in computers, electro hydraulic controls, and very compact high torque diesel engines, are now the norm. Today, modern farm tractors start at £30,000, with a six figure sum required to buy a 300hp. top-of-the-range model.

The Western World tractor industry has rationalised with many mergers taking place, and these multi-national giants now enjoy high volume demand for top end specification tractors. High tech mouldable plastics with high structural strength have replaced much of the sheet metal used in my day. Today's products are styled to an extreme level as only 4 big players compete for the business, with tooling costs able to be amortised over high volumes.

As our business ratio moved from mainly 'own brand' sales to dealers and farmers, to mainly a business as a sub-contract supplier to tractor makers, so the need for quality improvements became paramount. Working to the quality requirements of large factories placed a lot of pressure on management and the work force. We had developed techniques for high speed sheet metalworking, allowing tolerances of plus or minus 5mm. This was unacceptable to oem customers who wanted plus or minus 1mm.

We made a big mistake in the early 1970s by agreeing to pay average earnings to skilled workers who were involved on prototype work. We paid the average weekly earnings enjoyed by normal production workers, which included their piece work bonus. Average earnings were meant to fairly remunerate half a dozen workers, but within 6 months, due to slack management, the practice became endemic throughout the workforce for reworks, or any job where a worker was held up for any reason. This practice had to be stopped, so the piecework bonus system was withdrawn while production management sorted out the anomalies. The workforce at Four Ashes walked out, and so began a long period where employee earnings slumped, and the company struggled to make a profit. We enjoyed substantial turnover, but we could not survive due to the high rework costs. 

This trend for the majority of orders, coming from oems, started in the mid 1970s, and a decade on, independent tractor cab making had all but disappeared, or had substantially downsized or diversified. My son John, who left the business two years after I retired, told me that Cab-Craft became an early casualty, as almost all our main oem customers eventually closed their factory doors shortly after my retirement.

International Harvester was the first to close, following a long damaging strike in the U.S.A. Case bought their business and closed the Doncaster tractor plant, ending our contract for loader/back-hoe cabs.

Following a long period of industrial unrest, Massey Ferguson closed down their Coventry tractor plant at Banner Lane, three years into our tractor cab contract transferring production to France. Coventry Climax went through a massive reduction in size following the eventual failure of their car group owners British Leyland. Ford bought New Holland combines, and later sold off the tractor/combine business to Fiat with all products now sold under the New Holland name, and built outside of the U.K., affecting our combine cab contract.

John had to reduce the workforce from an all time high of 360, to 150 within a 6-month period. Surprisingly, there was no recommendation from the Shop Stewards for work sharing, they insisted on last in, first out. All this was happening in the era of 'Red Robbo' the infamous shop steward at British Leyland. Union militancy was to spread over much of the Midlands engineering industry with disastrous results, speeding-up the decline of many companies, including those in the cab manufacturing sector. Within a few years, cab production returned to become a niche business back to where it started from in the fifties. Those companies still remaining, who had diversified into other products, still continue today producing cabs for low volume use customers such as self-propelled sprayer manufacturers.

What became of Cab-Craft?  As I understand it, Mitchell Cotts was bought by the Souter Group, and the Mitchell Cotts Engineering Division was sold off. A management buyout saved Cab-Craft and Temperate Filtration, and these companies then operated solely out of the small premises at Shaw Road. Cab manufacture continued along with air filtration unit manufacture. Should any of my former colleagues read this, maybe they could write down the final chapter. 

Doug Barker - April, 2010.