Some collect stamps, spoons, or salt and pepper shakers, but Bill Shanley can’t store his collectibles in a book or case; he needs a whole farm. In his collection, Bill houses 180 tractors on his NSW rural property at Bunyan, not far from Cooma.

Bill remembers starting life on his father’s property near the Eucumbene Dam in the NSW Snowy Mountains before moving to the property Bill still owns in Bunyan, taking with them the draft horse and cart.

They got by for a while with the animal helping with the brunt of the work. However, Bill’s father realised they needed something more powerful after the horse and cart tipped while they were putting in fence posts on a hill.

“My father hired a tractor for two pounds a day in 1959. My father had a go at driving the tractor. I was 11 and I said I’ll have a go, and the bloke who owned it said you’re doing better than your father,” Bill smiles.

Over the next few years, the amount of machinery on the property grew, and one of the additions was to make collecting hay easier. Bill was about to leave the farm for school the day the hay baler arrived, a day he remembers clearly.

“I baled 500 bales of hay the morning before I went to boarding school. I wouldn’t be game enough to put an 11-year-old on a hay baler these days, but we didn’t think much of it then,” he says.

Since first jumping on the hay baler, Bill has had over 60 years of experience making hay. As well as making hay on his farm, Bill runs sheep and cattle. For a time, he also travelled the country showing horses.

“It was presentation, dressage, marathon; there was a course you had to follow. I had a horse who was brilliant on that.”

He says that was his first life; the second began about 30 years ago when he started purchasing tractors. The first one Bill got his hands on was the one that made him fall in love with tractors as a young boy.

“Before that, I had fast cars and wild women, then I gave them away and started collecting tractors,” he smiles.

Laughing with his wife, Moya, Bill says she has always been all right with the collection but isn’t interested in going on trips in the truck to collect any of them.

“I used to bring her a rose to get back in the door, then we got too many roses in the garden, so instead of bringing a rose home, I had to bring a diamond. I only did that once,” he says.

According to Bill, Western Australia is a hot spot for tractors where he can often find rarer models. He believes it’s because WA has so much farming land, a rare or special tractor will just be left out in a field. He does have criteria for what tractor he will buy, and is not a fan of the old steel wheel tractors.

“John Deeres are probably my favourite and the most collectible, especially the older ones. The Chamberlains are Aussie made; I have all the orange ones.”

Back when the US and Australian dollars were on par, Bill purchased eight of his tractors from the US, some of which are the only one of their kind in Australia. However, that’s no longer a viable option because of the exchange rate.

He bought the tractors from an Amish man, who was hard to get in contact with.

“They were allowed to have tractors for his farm. He had it on a site called Yesterdays Tractors. He might have done a bit of cheating there I think,” smiles Bill.

Maintaining a tractor can be time-consuming work. While his aren’t all in perfect working order, Bills says most of them still have a bit of grunt left in them.

“They virtually all run. I’ve got a few lined up that I am working on, but to finish them all I have to live to be 125,” he smiles.

The tractors don’t just sit around looking pretty; some get put to use in one of Bill’s most loved pastimes – tractor pulling. Hel loads the tractors on the truck and heads to a field day or rural show to show off the power of his machines.

Tractor pulling is a motorsport where a farm tractor, often modified, pulls a weight across a set track. The goal isn’t to be the fastest but to pull the heaviest weight. Bill travels between NSW and Victoria to attend the competitions and has brought home many first-place titles. With many shows having been cancelled in recent years due to Covid and heavy rains, Bill is excited for the shows to return in full force.

“I restored this John Deere that I take to tractor pulls, I get the most enjoyment out of. I used to have another one, but everyone got bigger, so I had to go up,” he says.

The hobby has become less sustainable over the years, not just with the amount of space the tractors take up, but the price has also dramatically increased. Bill says his collection has turned out to be a good retirement fund, in a way, and he plans to sell a few – but definitely not his favourites.

Some of the tractors that Bill bought for as much as $5,000 years ago have increased to $30,000 in value. The enthusiast has no doubt that he will be able to find buyers for them when he is ready. He has sold a few through online sites, usually when he collects two at once and doesn’t like one of them. If he was to have a big sale, he would host it at his farm.

“It’s marvellous where you get calls from. If I was to have a farm clearance sale, you would get them [people coming] from Tassie, New Zealand. It is surprising how many tractor collectors there are.”

Not sure what will become of his collection or the farm in the future, Bill says it is important to enjoy the things in life that make you happiest.

“You do a lot of silly things but you’re only here once and there is no point being the richest man in the cemetery,” he smiles.

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