Benjamin Franklin Gravely of Dunbar , West Virginia , put in his tycoon - ram push plow in 1916 . It used belts to transfer power from an Indian bike engine . He predict it a motor plough . He incorporate the Gravely companionship and , in the middle 1920s , marketed a 2½-horsepower Model D tractor from a manufacturing plant in Dunbar .
Early Design
Eustace Rose , an inventor said to have create Chrysler ’s first automatic transmitting , was a friend of Gravely and a Gravely company shareowner . Rose did much of the engineering science on the first tractor . The crankshaft of the railway locomotive help as the hub of the bicycle . The Walter Piston and crankcase were on one side of the crankshaft ; the gear drive was on the other . The first tractors weighed about 190 pounds each .
Model D
Gravely first market the 2½ HP , two - wheel around Model D in the mid-1920s . Gravely made cultivator , sickle mower and lawn mower attachments for the Model D.
Model L
Gravely introduced the two - wheeled Model L tractor in 1935 . The Model L had a four - cycle engine with one piston chamber ; it delivered 5 HP . The tractor could pull two 25 - column inch gang mowers , making it utilitarian for pout golf game course and other large area of sod . Early models come with flail mower and rototillers . The company by and by added snow blades , snowblowers and sprayers as well as seats and steerage wheels .
Later History
Benjamin Franklin Gravely sold the last of his stock in the caller in 1940 . He died in 1953 . The Studebaker company finally bought a legal age pastime in the fellowship . Using a rear - engine aim , Gravely began marketing a four - bike garden tractor in 1964 . The Ariens company buy Gravely in 1982 . Garden tractor plan by Gravely ceased around 2000 . The Gravely name was dropped from tractors in 2002 although it is still used on lawn equipment .
Serial Numbers
The serial phone number in the first year of the Gravely 5 - horsepower Model L tractor in 1939 range from 2465 to 2761 . The serial routine in 1955 , the first class of the 6.6 - HP models , array from 95441 to M-5565 . The 1966 serial number , the first year of the 7.6 - H.P. model , graze from 2M34216 through 2M51800 . The serial numbers for 1969 , the first year of the four - wheel Gravely tractor , compass from 000100 - A through 003848A. In 1970 , the first year of the Gravely Model 408 , the consecutive numbers range from 01003 to 01845 . Serial numbers are unknown for models originally than 1939 .
