Titan Tractors Slashes The Price of 4-WD Power

 
 For a short time after the Steiger name and lime green color vanished
 from the 4wd market the Titan Tractor company tried to fill the void that
 made Steiger number one in its class.
 
 Douglas and Morris Steiger who wanted a bigger tractor in the late
 1950's decided to build one. With the "solve your own problems" attitude
 the brothers rounded up a bunch of truck parts, a 238 hp Detroit diesel
 engine and built the first Steiger tractor 1 FWD in their farm shop
 located in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. A neighbor said, he I like the looks
 of the tractor and soon word spread in the neighborhood and in 1957 and
 1958 the Steigers were fabricating copies of 1 FWD in their diary barn.
 The first Steiger tractors sold on a national scale in 1963 were the 1200,
 1700, 2200 and 3300 Steigers. These large single front frame models were
 built so solid that instead of decals, the Steiger name plate was cut from
 3/8-inch steel and the models engine designation was cut as a large V in
 the tractors front grille. Steiger tractors were successful because their
 main feature was " standard components." Major parts, such as engines,
 transmissions and power trains were outsourced from brand name suppliers
 like Caterpillar, Cummins, Allison, Clark and Spicer. For this reason
 replacement parts were readily available nationwide. 
 
 Jack Johnson the former president of Steiger formed Titan Tractors of
 Fargo, North Dakota in the early 1990's to provide with a solid and basic
 4wd at a low cost like the original Steiger tractors. His intention was
 to take in high houred Steiger 4wds and rebuild them with new interiors,
 paint, drive trains and engines. Titan used the components from Versatile and Steiger
 series III and IV tractors like the BEARCAT, PANTHER, and TIGER.  Ertl
 produced a 1/32 Titan STR-360 toy model for the Toy Farmer Magazine in
 1998 to kick of a new line of historical toy Steiger models. The real
 Titan STR-360 is based off the 1984 Steiger Series IV Panther CM-360.
 Johnson's Titan Tractors were short lived because the same potential
 strengths of Titans were their ultimate downfall. Because old Steiger
 components were used, production efficiency and timeliness were poor,
 rising the overall costs. The production problems caused the Titan price
 to be very close to the price of then current new tractors of similar
 horsepower. Only 12 Titan models rolled out of 4050 West Main Avenue,
 Fargo, North Dakota. One former Tiger III ST470 refitted to a Titian 525
 hp model was sold and delivered to the Dole Pineapple Plantation in
 Honolulu, Hawaii.

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