The Minneapolis-Moline UTS was one of eight variants of the U series, the tractor family that made the company’s reputation in the late 1930s and 1940s. The company history lists it alongside the UTU, UTL, UDU, UOPL, UB, UTIL and UT.
Minneapolis-Moline UTS at a glance
| Maker | Minneapolis-Moline Power Implement Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
|---|---|
| Series | U series, introduced with the UDLX in 1938 |
| U-series variants | UTU, UTS, UTL, UDU, UOPL, UB, UTIL, UT |
| Sister model | UDLX Comfortractor, the closed-cab Model U Deluxe of 1938 |
| Factories | Minneapolis (Lake Street at Hiawatha Avenue), Hopkins, Minnesota, Moline, Illinois |
| British relatives | UDS (1946, £1,050) and Meadows diesel UDM (1948, £1,200) |
| Company formed | 1929, by the merger of three Minnesota and Illinois firms |
| Brand retired | 1974, by White Motor Company |
The source covers the U series as a whole and does not describe the UTS separately, so this page is based on the company history only.
History of the Minneapolis-Moline UTS
Minneapolis-Moline was created in 1929 from the merger of Minneapolis Steel & Machinery, the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company and the Moline Implement Company, formerly the Moline Plow Company. The firm built on Lake Street at Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis, in Hopkins, Minnesota, and in Moline, Illinois, and was first called the Minneapolis-Moline Power Implement Company.
The U series was one of its most popular tractor families. Its most celebrated member was the UDLX Comfortractor, also known as the Model U Deluxe, which pioneered the closed-cab farm tractor in 1938: a 2.9-ton machine with Prairie-Gold bodywork, a passenger seat, a heater, an ashtray and a radio, powered by a 46 hp 283 cu in four-cylinder petrol engine. At US$2,155 it cost about twice a Farmall or a John Deere, and only 125 were built before production ended in 1941.
The UTS is recorded as one of the U-series variants rather than as a model in its own right, and the published company history gives no separate specification or production dates for it. The same history records that two related tractors were assembled in Great Britain between 1946 and 1949: the UDS at £1,050 and the Meadows diesel-powered UDM at £1,200, both withdrawn after poor sales.
Minneapolis-Moline later reorganised as Motec and was acquired by the White Motor Company in 1963. White dropped the Minneapolis-Moline name in 1974, and the brand’s last owner, AGCO, kept building tractors under the White name until 2001.
Design and features
- Part of the U series: one of the eight variants of the company’s best-known tractor family.
- Same engineering generation: the U series that produced the closed-cab UDLX with its electric starter and car-type dashboard.
- Prairie-Gold company: built in the years when Minneapolis-Moline tractors were painted in its signature bright yellow.
Minneapolis-Moline UTS versions
- UTS: the variant described on this page.
- UTU, UTL, UDU, UOPL, UB, UTIL and UT: the other U-series variants named in the company history.
- UDLX Comfortractor: the closed-cab flagship of the family, 1938–1941.
- UDS and UDM: U-series tractors assembled in Britain between 1946 and 1949.
The U series page tells the story of the UDLX Comfortractor, and the next four-cylinder line is described on the Z page. More tractors are in the Minneapolis-Moline collection.
Video: 1953 Minneapolis Moline UTS pulling
Video on YouTube.
Sources
- Minneapolis-Moline, English Wikipedia: company history, U-series variants, British assembly
