“I don’t know how much of Nagorcka’s design is calculated and how much is intuitive, but Mr Nagorcka has demonstrated excellent design instinct for highly functional mechanical designs. Regardless of how he arrived at his current level of development, I suggest his execution may be unique, thus patentable.”
THAT was an excerpt of a letter written in 1991 by John Deere’s US based manager of advanced machine concepts to an associate, singing the praises of James Nagorcka’s engineering designs and innovation.
The characterisation epitomises the mystery surrounding the humble, unassuming, gentleman who has had a successful career in agriculture, tractor manufacturing and exporting his engineering technology - the greater details of which will be expanded upon in James’ soon to be released memoir.
There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since that letter was written but there was a lot of water before that point too.
The book will provide an account of all the literal machinations, the ups and downs he and his wife June endured to get to where they are today, and how they are now enjoying the fruits of their labour.
The eldest of three children, James was born in 1944 to parents, Percy and Elsie, followed by sisters, Kaye and Mary.
James’ earliest memory is from the age of two during the floods of ’46 at home on the farm at Warrayure.
He recalls the time he and his mother were on the veranda, and she was holding him while he balanced on the ledge amongst all her pot plants lined up, as they both looked across the flooded plains to where the paddocks used to be.
“It looked like the sea,” he said.
“In the distance I could see the two haystacks where the neighbours stored their rye grass, and they looked like two ships on the water.”
He reckons the water must have been at least three or four feet deep – but also said that hasn’t happened to the same extent, since.
His sharp recollections give an insight into the methodical clarity that has steered James throughout his life, culminating in major accomplishments in engineering, as a company director and a global entrepreneur.
Pivotal to the beginning of what became an international enterprise is the prototype Waltanna Tractor that James constructed from the ground up in 1974-5, now stored in a large, industrial shed at the end of a stately, tree-lined driveway on his son’s farm at Strathkellar.
Gleaming, freshly polished and painted, it stands proudly alongside another tractor which features one of James’ most significant engineering feats, the TRAC-200, a further historic marker of the business venture that followed.
James and wife June’s tractor manufacturing company burgeoned, leading to international deals with Track Marshall in the United Kingdom, followed by a deal to export and develop the TRAC-200 innovation to John Deere in the United States.
Despite not finishing school, James is a man of many talents - natural engineering ingenuity, outstanding business acumen and “a little musical talent”, he humbly said.
However, one thing not many people would probably know, is:
He has a talent for mimicking the accents of the international business people he has dealt with, ranging from a midland English variety, the Queen’s proper English, or a broad Texan drawl.
He also had some athletic prowess back in the day, having won the boys’ athletic championships and was delighted to show off the trophies he won, as well as those for playing the piano accordion.
But like any successful company, James and June’s venture hasn’t all been smooth sailing, with plenty of challenges and lessons along the way - but also miracles.
They were sued for $2 million by a corporate giant based in the United Kingdom, counter sued for $3 million, and have been up to their eyeballs in debt, but nevertheless, persevered.
He loves driving them, but three distinct tragedies marred James’ journey in the tractor industry, and he has since developed a strong respect for the “unforgivingly” heavy machine.
He chokes up when he talks about the loss of a dear uncle and a close friend, who were killed in two separate accidents on tractors.
A third major tractor incident involved his father who jumped off a tractor to adjust the hay rake.
But it all began as a kid following his father around and to whom James attributes a lot of his success, saying he was wonderfully supportive and helpful, making him a partner in the farm very early on.
“I started to drive a tractor when I was eight years old - by myself,” James said.
“Dad told me I could work over near the cypress trees and so that’s all I thought about all day at school - just getting home to drive the tractor.
“I only went to Year 9 at Hamilton High School – I was in Sangster House.
“I wasn’t a real studious guy - I liked running and got a couple of championships, things like that.
“I think my mother wanted me to continue my education, but Dad didn’t really say anything.
“It was sort of half expected that you would come home and work on the farm … so, I did.
“I never regretted it – leaving school – but I did feel a little tinge of sadness the first day the bus went past. But I just got on with farming.
“Right from the start it was my Dad, my Mum and myself, and that kept my interest in the farm.
“I’d come home from school - and just get to work.”
And work he did.
“My Dad didn’t give me anything,” James said.
“Sure, he sold me the farm - not at market value - but I did have to buy it.
Mr Nagorcka went to see local lawyer Mr Lowenstern to secure a private equity loan, after which he was delighted to receive letters addressed to James A Nagorcka Esq.
“I was nervous because I did have to pay all that money back - and did so,” he said.
James credits his father with instilling a strong sense of financial conservativism in him which helped him succeed, telling him not to be one day late with payment.
“You don’t borrow if you can’t pay it back – my father told me,” he said.
The first tractor 1974-75
James was competitive and as there was a horsepower (HP) race on at the time, he wanted to get in on the action.
“It was an exciting time,” James said.
“It was a challenge (to keep building tractors).
“There was some really big tractors 400, 500, 600 HP.
“The Big Bud came out from the USA – but we nicknamed it the Big Dud.
“It was big but that was about it.”
James said American farmers were very different from Australian farmers.
“If an American farmer thinks he needs a 300 HP tractor, he’ll go and buy a 400 HP tractor,” he said.
“If an Australian farmer thinks he needs a 300 HP tractor, he’ll ask; can I do it with 250 HP?”
James said Americans tended to build their tractors unable to take bigger loads and consequently US designed tractors just didn’t work in Australia.
“We took a different philosophy that our tractors had to be made (so) that the weakest part was the engine,” he said.
“The rest of the tractor had to take a lot more HP than that – because at some stage it will have a shock load or if you are turning – it’s no good having 600 HP tractor with two 300 HP axles because the engine may have to deliver the 600 HP to one axle, and it will fail.
“So that’s our philosophy.
“OK, we were a little bit more expensive in doing that, but I think the farmers appreciated that.
“I’ve got a tractor out at the farm that has done 60,000 hours.
“That’s an enormous amount for a tractor – normally they do around 10,000 or 15,000 – bear in mind it is on its second engine.
“I built a tractor for myself in 1974-75 and I’ve still got it.
“I did sell it at one point because we needed the money, but I did eventually buy it back - for more money than I sold it for.
“I built it because I felt that 4WD articulated tractors were the new way to utilise efficient power to the ground, more so than just the 2WD tractors that we’d been used to.
“I had put an order in for a Massey Ferguson 1200.
“That was an articulated tractor – 120 HP built in the UK.
“I ordered it through the local dealer in Hamilton, but it wasn’t coming, and it wasn’t coming.
“Eventually I found out it had some real issues with reliability, the transmission, and the axles weren’t big enough for Australian conditions.
“It was taken off the market and they didn’t sell any in Australia and because of that it left me with nothing.
“At the same time, a couple of friends and I saw a Versatile and a Steiger tractor that were component built.”
“They bought a caterpillar engine and transmission from somewhere else and put it together and made a reliable tractor out of it, but they were too big for our farm with a 200-300 HP range.”
That is what set James on the path as a manufacturer and he decided he would build something for himself using components sourced; a Caterpillar engine, truck gear box, transfer case and two axles from a Franklin timber log skidder.
“I got them all together in the shed and used a piece of paper and drew a chassis and put it together myself,” he said.
“It worked very well.
“It was a nice piece of equipment.
“Somebody said why don’t you build another and see if you can sell it.”
“I didn’t have a buyer, but two friends of mine from Warrayure came over to help, Noel Kruger and Gerald Schurmann, and we decided to build another 175 HP. In those days 150 HP was a big tractor round here.”
Prior to that James had already cut his teeth as an engineer, having built his own three-point linkage cultivator, a set of folding harrows, a feedlot mixer for feeding cattle and also a set of flax seed rollers for the harvester – among others.
James took the tractor to the Wimmera Field Days at Longerenong in 1977 and sold it the second day he was there and got an order for another.
“I sold it to brothers, George and Sam White from Manangatang, for $33,500 – that was big money.”
James is proud to say the White family have still got that tractor and although only on rare occasions, it is still in use.
“It started out using a 175 HP Caterpillar engine, and he bought a GM (General Motors) Detroit engine (400 HP) and put that in it, and it’s been operating at 400 HP ever since,” James said.
James and June decided that rather than building tractors here in Australia, they should look at developing their own brand of machinery to be manufactured in a bigger facility overseas.
At one point they also moved into making timber forwarder vehicles for the timber industry.
“We didn’t make the engine or the transmission,” he said.
“We manufactured the chassis and the cabin - a lot of that was done by contract.”
Around the time they got into manufacturing tractors, the Federal Government was paying a bounty on tractors. That meant they were paying manufacturers to use local components to assemble the tractor on the proviso that above 50 per cent of local content was used.
“They did that to support the tractor industry in Australia,” he said
“The bounty was worth around $10-12,000 per tractor to us.
“However, as local builders – we had to pay duty on imported components that we couldn’t purchase in Australia.
“In other words, for a transmission or axle we had to import, the duty payable was anything from 5, 10 or 20 per cent on the value of the goods.
“The amount of duty payable to the government was between $12,000 - $15,000.
“The bounty did offset that a bit.”
James credits former Wannon MP, David Hawker, for giving the industry great support on the issue.
“He was extremely supportive over this issue and made a wonderful speech in the parliament at the time,” James said.
Then the Labor Government’s Senator, John Button, made an amendment to the Bounty and Subsidy Legislation Amendment Bill (1985) and terminated the bounty on agricultural tractors and equipment in the 1987-88 Budget.
Once the bounty was taken off, tractor manufacturers were forced to pay the import duty on components with no offset, as it were.
“The Labor Government - they were no friend of local manufacturing,” James said
James’ father was a great supporter of James and June’s business venture and particularly encouraged James to build the second tractor.
“He was very supportive in general, so June and I asked him to be an equal partner in Waltanna Tractors,” James said.
“But he never got to see the build of the second tractor – he had a secondary stroke and went to hospital and died the following day – three days short of (the) three-year anniversary of his tractor accident.”
