AVID COLLECTORS CANNOT RESIST TRACTORS' PULL.

Byline: Don Holland Daily News Staff Writer

Chuck Covarrubias remembers his boyhood, watching with awe as an immense tractor lumbered through the lima bean fields where he played.

So big and powerful. So honest in their utilitarian simplicity.

And he remembers being 10 and driving a red 1936 Farmall F-12 for the very first time.

``Basically, I'd been riding on it all day, and at the end of the day, I got to drive it from the field to the barn,'' said a nostalgic Covarrubias. ``I was probably the proudest kid in the world.''

A half-century later, Covarrubias and a growing cadre of grown men are turning their boyhood passions into collections of classic tractors.

Formed five years ago, the Topa Topa Flywheelers club is dedicated to the preservation of vintage farm equipment. It boasts 75 members in Ventura and four neighboring counties. A museum in Vista is dedicated to the iron beasts of burden, and every April, Tulare hosts a big get-together for tractor buffs. The hobby is even more popular in the East and Midwest.

Covarrubias, a real estate broker and owner of Alert Management in Oxnard, has five restored tractors in his collection, which includes a model just like the one he fell in love with as a boy. Ten others are running, but need work. He keeps another 10 on hand to cannibalize for parts.

His tractor attraction, he said, is about the old-fashioned satisfaction that comes with fixing things and about returning to a simpler, slower time.

``The tractors were actually very beautiful in a way,'' he said. ``Even when they're not restored, and not running, they're so simple. It's like when somebody looks at a rose garden. It's a thing of beauty.''

LeRoy Miller was captivated by tractors as a kid growing up on a farm and cattle ranch in northeast Colorado.

The funny thing about tractor collecting, one is frequently not enough.

``We've got members that have 30 tractors, and we've got members who have no tractors,'' he said. ``We're just a bunch of good ol' boys doing something that we enjoy.''

Miller and his son started rebuilding engines together. Then about six years ago, they decided to take on a tractor. Now they own three in running condition, and son Mike is president of the Topa Topa tractor club.

``Basically, we're preserving the past,'' said the younger Miller, a mechanic and Camarillo resident. ``Our main goal now is to get out and play with our stuff. When there are shows or parades, we show them.''

Many tractor collectors picked up their first tractors for nothing more than the price of hauling away an aging hulk. Though some collectors pour thousands of dollars into restoration, many tractors can be patched up for several hundred dollars.

Bill Milligan has the tractor bug, too.

He and a friend, Jon Peterson, once traveled to Iowa for a tractor auction. Peterson bought two. Milligan bought three.

His favorite, he says, is a 1929 Twin Cities that his father bought brand-new. At a tractor festival, he once met the son of the salesman who sold it.

``We're just people who like old farm equipment,'' Milligan said, straight and simple as the tractors he adores.

``Why does a man like a horse? Or why does a man like a car?'' he said, thinking out loud about his hobby. ``I think you have to be a little dingy.''

The Topa Topa Flywheelers plan to display some 30 vintage tractors, their largest display to date, during the Camarillo Air Show and Expo '98, set for June 20 and 21. For details call the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce at [phone].

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Tractor collector Bill Milligan cranks up the engine on a Twin City model built in 1929. Bought brand-new by his father nearly 70 years ago, it's his favorite among the many he's gathered at his ranch in Somis.

(2--Color) A grinning Bill Milligan sits in his 1937 Allis Chalmers, part of his antique farm equipment collection.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News