# Hesston lawn tractor



## stevens-hill (May 26, 2009)

In the 70's I owned a Hesston lawn tractor. It was articulated steering with a hydrostatic transmission. I had a snow thrower and a plow blade with it. The clutch for the snow thrower was electric. You sat on top of the engine and the rear half was like a pickup bed with a rear tailgate. It was very heavily built - steel not sheet metal - It was one of the very best lawn tractors I have ever owned. The lawn mower was in front of the unit and took full advantage of the 21' turning radius. The unit was very similar to Bolens' articulated steering units of the 60's and 70's. I bought the Hesston new and used it for many years. It remains today the only Hesston unit of this type I have ever seen. Was it a limited prodection run? Did Hesston make just a few units and dropped it? Sad to say I didn't even save a picture of the tractor.


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## snasher (Apr 2, 2012)

Hesston I agree had a very well designed lawn tractor. As a teen, I was fortunate enough to be able to test out some of their prototypes! My father worked at Woods Co. in Oregon, IL, where some of the Hesstons were built and tested. Our job was to test them out and see if we could break them, or find problems with them. Needless to say, these units were built to take anything we could throw at them. I grew up on a farm, so we had many different test scenarios we could throw at them. I owned one myself for many years, wish they weres till in production, I would have another.


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