1959 Porsche Diesel Junior V Tractor

The name Porsche may be synonymous with high performance sports cars but Professor Porsche had a long-standing plan to build tractors and the first model, dubbed the Type AP17, was debuted at the 40th Germany Agricultural Show held in Frankfurt in 1950. Based in Manzell, a suburb of Friedrichshafen in southern Germany, the Porsche-Diesel factory began building innovative tractors noted for their lightweight construction, air-cooled engines, hydraulic clutch and centrifugal oil filter and within a few years the range had been expanded to include single, twin, triple and four-cylinder variants - all with a common bore and stroke of 92mm by 116mm. By the late 1950s the range consisted of the Junior, Standard and Super and the diesel engines had been largely standardised to keep production costs down. Most Porsche tractors have long since disappeared after tough working lives on farms across Europe and those that have survived have taken on collectible status thanks to the Porsche badge, proving popular with Porsche collectors around the world looking for something a little out of the ordinary.