By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Who knew? Elvis Presley owned a John Deere 4010 – and that 4010 has been restored and even turned into an Ertl toy.
The toy was created through a partnership between Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. and John Deere and produced by Ertl. The story began when Elvis purchased a ranch in Mississippi in the Sixties.

Alicia Dean, media assistant at Elvis Presley Enterprises, said, “Elvis acquired his John Deere 4010 tractor with the purchase of a Mississippi ranch in 1966. Having grown up around farming in Tupelo, Elvis knew he needed the best equipment possible to care for the land he had just purchased.

“Family members and close friends of Elvis tell stories about the enjoyment the famous entertainer had while working with his tractor.”

The ranch was purchased after the singer got into horses. When he had 17 horses at Graceland, in Memphis, the time came for more space – and it was then he purchased the land originally called Twinkletown Ranch. Once he bought the ranch, he renamed it Circle G, for Graceland.

Presley purchased the ranch from an airplane salesman named Jack Adams, who originally bought it from a John Deere dealer in Tunica, Miss. Dean said the JD 4010 tractor, Series 213, was a general purpose model built at the John Deere Waterloo Works in Waterloo, Iowa, and that it was sold at a John Deere dealership in Tunica, along with a 46 A JD loader.

The dealership today is the Parker Tractor and Implement Co. Located at 1626 Highway North in Tunica, General Manager Jim Pegram said the dealership changed hands during the early 1980s. While Elvis didn’t keep the ranch, he did keep the tractor when he sold the land, bringing the 4010 back to Graceland where it was used to maintain the grounds.

It was in 2009 that the tractor received a facelift from students at the Northwest Mississippi Community College’s John Deere Tech Program located in Senatobia. Shane Louwerens, an instructor there, was selected to head the project because of his intense documentation when restoring tractors.
When Deere and Elvis Presley Enterprises approached Louwerens to talk with him about updating the tractor for display at the Graceland Auto Museum, they didn’t tell him who the restoration was for – only that it was a historically significant tractor. At first he refused to take the job because they were asking him to do things that didn’t make sense, such as to keep the dents and the old steering wheel intact.

When asked if he would do the project, Louwerens surprised them: “I told them no thanks, since I couldn’t do it my way.”

It wasn’t until they finally broke down and explained that the tractor had belonged to Presley and that every dent was a piece of history and every original piece a document of his life on the 4010, that it made sense to the teacher to preserve the tractor as they requested.

When they told him, Louwerens said, “I was star-struck, to work on a piece of history.”

Part of this story is that Louwerens had to keep the owner’s identity quiet from the four young men working for him – Andrew Fortune, Aaron Jolley, Blane McGuire and Timothy Reed – as well as everyone else except his boss and the president of the college.

The tractor was restored in record time for its unveiling at Graceland.
At the college, the young men worked outside the box for this project. “This was a once in a life chance to be a part of history,” Louwerens explained, adding after 300 hours the project was complete, although they had to work nights, weekends and during their free time.

The unveiling was when the students learned to whom the tractor had belonged. The team was invited to the unveiling at Graceland, where they received the royal treatment, including a private tour and media interviews. To chronicle this event, Louwerens has recorded the story in a book that he hopes may be published one day.

The Presley 4010 tractor toy model is available at some John Deere dealerships and from various toy vendors. Although Elvis Presley Enterprises didn’t have information about its eventual fate, an International Harvester 300 was also owned by the singer and was created in a toy model, as well.