Ferruccio Lamborghini didn't start out as a builder of supercars. His first success came in the form of tractors and agricultural equipment. Here's a look at the long and illustrious history of automaker-built tractors.

With Spring bustin' out all over, farmers everywhere will pull their John Deere's and Internationals from the barn for planting season. We figure it's time to take a look at the long and illustrious history of automaker-built tractors.

Tractors and cars at the turn of the 20th century couldn't be further apart in design. Where cars were just coming into their own and the path of electric drive, steam power or internal combustion was still being sorted out, tractors had been steam driven since the late 1800's. More or less steam locomotives on wheels, they were huge, expensive, hot, dangerous machines requiring several men to fuel and operate and they weren't particularly powerful. When the early automakers began settling on internal combustion engines as the future, they also set their sights on the farm industry. There was a lot of land to be plowed out west and a lot of money to be made on agricultural equipment, gasoline engines developed for cars could be repurposed for heavier duty operation and sold to farmers everywhere, and they were. Here are a few examples of automakers building tractors, and occasionally tractor manufacturers turning out automobiles, sometimes with great success.