Any ideas?

D8Dude - you are correct, the 1800 articulated tractors began with a Cat V8, and MF owned Landini for a fair bit of time and they produced several models. Busso, The 510 was first put in the 1150, then 1155 and several more into the 80's, plus some combines. EZCat - the MF crawlers/loaders/dozers were built by Landini with Perkins engines. They used the gas Continentals into the early 80's, up to about 70-75HP in North America, I don't think they went anywhere else in any great quantity. The gas version of any model pretty much made less HP than the diesel. The number of models MF had is mind boggling, different versions for different markets. I'd love to get my hand on a 178, but most if not all were sold in France and England, or Europe in general. The other one I'd really like is the 1200 series articulated tractors, But again, most if not all sold in England, they're a small perkins 354 six, super cool.

Grew up on Massey's, started on a gas 35.

Sorry to get so far off track!

The Massey 1155 had a V8 Perkins. They would hunt badly until they got to around 1600 - 1800 rpm and smooth out after that. We had a few French built Masseys around our area I thought they were a 500 series but could have been 600’s. Not sure if they were the rebadged Landini.

178 were not all that uncommon here. I liked the 168 multipower with wet disc brakes, those dry disc brakes were a death trap on our hills. There was a 1200 not all that far from where I am a few years ago, it's probably still there. Those 6-354 Perkins are a lovely engine, I ran one in a MF 399. I think some 600's came out of France, and some came out of Coventry. Some people didn't like them, in my opinion, apart from the cabin being prone to rust, they were a fantastic tractor. I still have two, one of which has been owned since new and carefully kept in a shed every time it's not in use. MF may not have been the best pulling tractors, but they offered really good power to weight ratio which made them great for PTO work for us and good on fuel for what they did.

My MF 690 nestled among the Cats

My mother bought a Ferguson TEA with the Standard engine in the '70s. Came with the two furrow plough, spring tine cultivators, and belt pulley. Put many hours on that unit ploughing, towing a trailer, and running the sawbench. She still has it in the shed, parked in front of the Twenty Two. Every part is still available. I think it's an early '50s unit but am not sure. Also have a 35 with the 3-148 Perkins which came with a Ferguson sickle bar mower and a Ferguson tractor jack. Bought that off a local spud farmer that had an NZ-made forklift mounted on the front for moving round spud boxes. Finally used a 165 and 185 on local farms - great tractors; not flash but always ran and got the job done.

It's quite amazing the parts availability for even the early MF tractors, the parts commonality between models and the shear volume that they were produced, a lot of parts are available off the shelf.

Since we are a little off topic on different color crawlers, I’ll throw our Landini up for fun.

More non-yellow. My 45-year-old Landini Trekker 55F doing single-shank ripping. 55 HP Perkins diesel. Reliable crawler with no computer electronics.

Landini started to become common in the new vineyards here in the 90's. Both the crawler and wheel tractors. The dealer was 60 to 80 miles away, and with ability of most vineyard workers they needed dealer support. I have not seen any new Landini tractors for some time. So my guess is the dealer went away. The crawlers are not lasting that good ether. With 100 to 250 gal air blast sprayer on the rear, and enough counter weights to hold the front end down the engines would break from the rest of the tractor.

The Deere dealer sold some Same crawlers and wheel tractors for a time back then as well. The JD parts man told me a good second tractor to have if you could live without it, as parts were very slow to come if needed.

As well as several other brands I don't remember could be found in the vineyards. Now the only new crawlers are New Holland or the Kubota with rubber 1/2 track instead of a rear wheel.

EZCAT dose the Landini you show have a real frame? That would go a long way fixing the problem of the engine falling off. From what I know NH could use a competitor. A friend with a 8 year old NH is not that happy with it. He only bought it because he was running out of old TD 6 tractors and good parts.

I seems a lot of us just like old tractors! Amazing amount of knowledge and experience here. Just to skid things further down the hill, here's the Deutz D3006 I just picked up but do not need in any way..... (I usually stick to MF wheeled tractors)