With around 10,000 units built at the Deutz plant in Cologne, the F1M 414 was the best-selling tractor in Germany in the second half of the 1930s. An extraordinary success for this small tractor, which contributed significantly to mechanising farms in the country, which up until then had counted on horse and ox power. This tractor has a fascinating history, with the direct involvement of the German government of the time in its development. 

With the nation gearing up for war and men signing up to fight, agriculture was left short of manpower. The government’s edict to resolve this issue was a clear: a sturdy tractor was needed that was cheap to buy and service, capable of fulfilling multiple roles and easy to use, even by women and youths still too young to be drafted. It had to be a veritable “Volksschlepper”, or tractor of the people, which, in the same mould as the contemporary Volkswagen (car of the people), needed to be mass-produced to make it affordable for all German farming families. 

Of all the proposals presented by Germany’s tractor constructors, the Deutz F1M 414 quickly proved to be the best-suited response to the needs of the era and became an immediate hit. 

The key characteristics of the machine can be found in the designation F1M 414: “F” stands for “Fahrzeug” (vehicle), “1” indicates the number of cylinders, “M” reveals that this 11 HP engine was water-cooled, “4” is the engine series and “14” is the piston stroke in centimetres. It is also interesting to note that this tractor could plough a hectare of land in 10 hours and mow a hectare an hour, thanks to its lateral cutting bar.

The F1M 414 was the only Deutz tractor marketed in the period immediately before the Second World War, and assembly of this machine resumed once the war ended. In 1946, a new version was introduced with 4 forward speeds (the previous version had 3), a more comfortable seat and a higher maximum road speed (increased from 8 to 15 km/h). The higher road speed also meant that the tractor gained a new pedal-operated brake and, a detail of no little importance, an electrical system with two headlamps, a tail light and a horn. 

Production of this version continued until 1951, with a total of almost 9,000 examples built.