You may have heard of patio furniture, but how about a patio tractor?
. 
From 1969 to 1971, John Deere manufactured a unique collection of lawn and garden tractors they called the “Patio Series”. Built to lure suburbanites, women and non-farmers, they painted the tractor hood and seats bright colors to attract buyers. The Patio Models were not painted in the traditional John Deere green but in custom colors. The tractor was painted in base Dogwood White. The seats and hoods were offered in four colors, Patio Red, Sunset Orange, April Yellow and Spruce Blue. The attachments were painted in Dogwood White.
At the Antique Power Club’s 25th Annual Antique Power Days Farm and Toy Show the first weekend in September I spied a neat display of 1/16th scale patio toys made by Ertl. Owned by John Galaway, a collector from Farmer City, John had his beautiful set on display in the toys show.
The 1/16th scale set was a gift to John while he was working at Hawn & Overton John Dealership in Farmer City. “They gave it to him while he was working there,” Phebe said.
“I worked there for two and a half years then I went out on my own and ran my own lawn construction business,” John said. He worked at Hawn & Overton in the 1970’s.
Deere’s hope that the series would sell well didn’t hold but the best sellers were Patio Red and Sunset Orange. The Patio Series colors were available first for Deere’s model 110, 112, 140 tractors. Later, the 120 tractor was made available with these non-green color options. The only difference between the regular green 110s, 112s, 120s and 140s and the Patio Series was the color scheme.
Outside I also spied a full patio lawn and garden tractor display as well. While I wouldn’t say rare is a correct word for these tractors that were built in Horicon, Wisconsin, they are not easy to find and brought a neat colorful aspect to the Salem show!
