Choice (tractor)
The machine factory Carl Fr. Wahl with headquarters in Balingen ( Baden-Württemberg ) was a manufacturer of agricultural machines. Tractors were built there from 1935 to 1962. In 1935 the construction of tractors began. A water-cooled two-cylinder MWM engine with 20 hp was bought, as was a ZF transmission with four forward and one reverse gears. The equipment matched the Schell plan of the Reich government , which was intended to keep the variety of brands within limits in order to standardize vehicle construction. So the tractor could be produced until 1942.
After the war, the W46 was the first tractor to hit the market in 1947. With a square hood and protective grille in front of the radiator and lamps, the appearance of the tractor was still rather rustic in the pre-war style, but the technology was carried out in a modern frameless block design. At the beginning of the 1950s, the range was broadened and the appearance was modernized with more elegant hood shapes. Models with one-, two- and three-cylinder engines with air and water cooling were used, almost always from MWM . The exception was the W70 with an engine from the Hatz engine factory , possibly also a variant of the W12. The type W225 was produced entirely by Hela - with a Hela engine - and received only one canopy of choice. The transmissions came almost exclusively from ZF Friedrichshafen , in exceptional cases also from Renk .
Wahl was mainly active as a regional manufacturer, there was no additional sales network. Some tugs were also exported, including to Switzerland. The importer there insisted on retrofitting with Primus hoods and colors that completely changed the W17 narrow-gauge appearance of the choice.
At the beginning of the sixties there were also new models as porters. The annual capacity was 300 to 400 tractors per year, too little to ensure sufficient profitability. The company's own tractor production was discontinued in 1962/63, Wahl took over the sale of tractors from the English manufacturer David Brown . That didn't last long either, as David Brown set up branches of his own. The production was limited to equipment for agriculture, especially band saws.
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The tractors built include u. a. the following models:
- W12
- W14
- W15
- W17
- W24
- W36
- W40
- W90
