The McCormick Roadless B450

The McCormick B450 Roadless / 4 wheel drive tractor is one of only 379 built in total, The first prototype was built in may 1961 at Roadless’s depot in Hounslow, then sent to the IH Factory in Doncaster to be inspected.
It Featured the same front axle as the Super major’s however it wasn’t possible to just simply split the McCormick and add in a sandwich plate style transfer box between the gearbox and final drive so a side drive unit was then specially made to be bolted on to the side of the Gearbox.
Once Selene agreed IH could market the tractor anywhere in the world even Italy (As nearly almost 50% of the B450 range was exported) the first 25 4 wheel drives were then built up at Hounslow in the October of 1963. After that point the kits were just supplied direct to the Doncaster factory where the B450’s were built to order.

I wonder how many of these beauties remain today as I’ve only ever seen 4 in the flesh.
The 1st one was at the 2013 Great Dorset Steam fair.
2nd time was at Welland Steam & country rally 2022, at this point id’ only seen a couple of rough examples been sold on eBay so it was good to get a reminder of how well they looked n good nick.
3rd was an immaculate restoration on the back of an old lorry at the 2023 Shrewsbury Steam Rally which would be exactly 10 years since i ever knew they existed.

And this the 4th one was saved by its previous owner from standing in a field for however many years before he managed to gather it up. In the last 15 years the engine has been rebuilt, new mudguards fitted , along with a radiator & tyres on all corners. After Ian Muir gave me the contact details of this original tractor, we then arranged a ride up to go kick its tyres and see what sort of condition it was in. After looking round it the only niggling bits were cosmetic things i wanted to alter along with some minor repairs. So managed to strike a deal with a pulley & hydraulic knuckles thrown in for the other B450.

We also arranged to gather it up on the weekend of the local Chester-Le-Street Steam rally which i had already booked in a B450 as Brother Andrew was going to be taking the wagon up. But Sadly the weather didn’t play ball which lead to the cancelation of the rally at the weekend along with me losing a lorry ride for the way home for it.

So after talking to various folks i decided it wouldn’t be completely bonkers to drive the Roadless all the way home which was about 80 miles away which took around 5 hours + when i stalled the bloody thing and left the key on in the ignition flattening the battery at an awkward junction been heckled the classic “You can’t Park there mate”.
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After rolling it out of the way and trying to jump start it with jump leads off the car i had no luck unsure wether it was because the tractor was wired up positive earth or the fact i was still 4 hours from home!
Anyway some lads round the corner carrying out roadworks had a bump pack with them so it wasn’t long before we were back in action and on the move again, with the next stop at Thirsk too warm up at the Yorks of Thirsk tea room with soup & a sandwich. This last part of the journey was a lot more enjoyable with some familiar scenery & friends closer by just in case. A few folks thought i was bonkers driving it that far but it was only like going on a tractor road run for the day & it did save me some money in transport costs.*

Other than take it down the field & drag out a barn find i didn’t do much else with it before using it to tow the living Van too driffield steam rally which as some regular watches know this ended up with us finding out the clutch was slipping & when we went to adjust it discovered the clutch fork had been bust previous and brazed back together, luckily Andy’s wagon was available to take it back home till i could get it fixed over winter along with al the other jobs i wanted to do to it. which will be covered in the next video.

The number plate for this tractor is JFU 95E which indicates this was sold originally in Northampton which i believe is to be hard ploughing land which is what the original B450 was sold (Known for??) for if we check out this original advert from “The Field” 6th August 1959 makes reference to its ideal weight distribution along with differential lock and 55 proper horse power “that could pull a house down” which is phase i first heard off Alistair Broadwith but have heard it said by a few others & came across it in the “Roar of Dust & Diesel which it mentions is on of Rex Walkers favourite lines who was an IH salesman.

Unlike other tractors that were converted to 4 wheel drive the IH McCormick B450 was one of the heaviest tractors on the market to be converted to wheel drive giving it that extra traction as you need weight to move weight.





[ ] Raymond loewy designed previous models

Raymond Loewy designed The International Harvester company was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, light and heavy duty trucks, construction