The rally and exhibition of old tractors and agricultural machinery, organized by the Retro Traktor Golub Dobrzyń club, has been attracting enthusiasts of old agricultural technology to the Golub castle for 16 years. Although a large part of the exhibits still consists of well-known popular tractor models, such as Ursus C325, C328, C330, C45 or Zetor 25 and 3011, each year more and more real gems can be seen, rarely seen in Polish fields. Among such machines we can count the definitely exotic, not only in Poland but also in Europe, Argentinian tractor of the Pampa brand.
It started with Lanza
The whole story must begin much earlier than the orange tractors appeared on Argentinian fields. Like our Ursus C45, the Pampa was a copy of the pre-war Lanza, so it would be worth going back to the glory days of this brand, popular in Germany, and to some extent in Poland, in the 1930s.
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Famulus 36, or agricultural mechanization in the GDR before the Fortschritt era
Heinrich Lanz, born in Friedrichshafen on March 9, 1838, founded the Heinrich Lanz AG company in Mannheim in 1859, initially involved in the import and servicing of agricultural machinery from British manufacturers. Over time, from 1967, he began producing small machines, such as small manual threshers and forage harvesters. A few years later, he introduced larger machines to his offer, offered in a set with a locomotive. It is worth adding that in terms of the latter, he was at one point the second largest manufacturer in the world. In 1912, after the death of the founder, Lanz AG presented the first agricultural tractor, and 1926 brought the beginning of the legendary Bulldog series, for which the brand was known for decades to come.
A copy of a tractor imported from Uruguay
The most powerful of the Bulldog series tractors, the D1506 model, equipped with a single-cylinder engine with a capacity of 10.5 liters and power of 55 HP, became the model for the Argentine Pampa tractors. What is the story behind it? Juan Domingo Perón Sosa, the president of Argentina in the years 1946-55, decided to mechanize the backward agriculture of his country at that time. Since relations with the United States, which could be a model to follow, were at best poor, the choice fell on the German brand Lanz. To make things more interesting, there was no question of a license here. Two copies of the D1506 model were simply imported from Uruguay, disassembled into parts, and a few months later production of an almost exact copy began under the Pampa brand.
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Serial production began in 1954. The Pampa tractors differed from the original Lanza in details, the most visible of which were slightly different fenders, a characteristic orange color, and the "Lanz Bulldog" casting on the "hood" changed to "IMAE PAMPA Industria Argentina". The acronym IMAE stands for "Industrias Aeronáuticas y Mecánicas del Estado" which means "state aerospace and mechanical industry". After Juan Perón was overthrown in 1955, the fate of Argentine tractors changed slightly. Initially, the inscription "IMAE" was changed to "DINFIA", developed as "Dirección N acional de F abricaciones e Investigaciones A eronáuticas", i.e. the national directorate of aeronautical production and research. Over time, other mudguards and simple cabs appeared, the color was changed to dark blue, but already in 1956 the Pampa tractors were withdrawn from production.
As for the example encountered in Golub-Dobrzyń, it is orange and equipped with the "DINFIA" logo, so if it is preserved in its original condition, we are most likely dealing with a tractor from 1955. Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to see the Pampa in motion, but several Ursus C45s and Lanzas perfectly reflected the atmosphere of the era with the loud sound of huge single-cylinder engines, started with a blowtorch and a steering wheel attached to the flywheel.
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The 1903 locomotive is powered by an old tractor. A beautiful picture from the heart of Kashubia.
