WORKHORSES WITH WHEELS : COLLECTORS PRIZE OLD-TIME TRACTORS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Tractors and engines aren't typical draws for a city street fair, yet a display of vintage farm equipment was a surprise hit at the July Fourth fair in downtown Ventura.

An industrious group of tinkering historians set up the display in front of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art to give fairgoers a glimpse of the county's agricultural past. They even fired up the one- and two-cylinder restored machines that transformed the industry in decades past.

``People just love to hear old machinery run, and rattle and bang,'' said Lee Miller, a Camarillo water district manager and president of the Topa Topa Flywheelers.

``If it's sitting there and not running, they walk by it and say that's nice,'' Miller said. ``If they see it run, they stop by and ask questions and say, `My dad used to do that.' ''

With a record crop value of $921 million in 1995, agriculture remains an economic powerhouse in Ventura County. The Flywheelers' aim is preserving a link to a time when tractors and engines took over from livestock to pull and power implements, pumps and other equipment.

The group, formed three years ago, takes its name from an engine part that regulates one-cylinder engines used to run pumps, grain mills and generators before electricity reached rural areas at the turn of the century.

Like the flywheel, the group's members keep going. The 70 or so collectors have acquired and restored more than 100 vintage pieces, mostly tractors and engines.

Nick Guriel, a Simi Valley cattle rancher, has purchased and restored three classic John Deere two-cylinder tractors, which were workhorses for farmers into the late 1960s. His models were manufactured in 1936, 1940 and 1945.

``They are literally the tractor that started to replace the horse,'' Guriel said.

``I grew up driving a John Deere tractor,'' Guriel recalled of his childhood on a farm in southwestern Pennsylvania. ``The two-cylinder tractor makes a unique sound. Once you get one running, it's like nothing you've ever heard.''

Miller and his son, Mike Miller, have restored two Farmall tractors made by International Harvester in the 1940s and 1950s. They also have restored a disc and bushhog, which can dig up or mow down most of anything growing on the ground.

``We're just trying to preserve a small chunk of the agricultural equipment story of this country,'' the elder Miller said.

Finding storage space often is the most troublesome obstacle. Miller's son, for instance, keeps their vintage equipment at his home in Camarillo because his father doesn't have space at his Oxnard home.

``Everybody finds a corner to hide their equipment in,'' his dad said.

The Flywheelers also lack a formal display area. So members have been taking pieces to more organized shows, including the Ventura County Fair, the antique equipment show at the Tulare International Fairgrounds, and Christmas parades in Camarillo, Oxnard and as far away as Wilmington.

Several times a year, the group's tractors, engines and other farm equipment can be found set up at Camarillo Airport. Area 4-H Clubs are invited to learn about the vintage equipment.

``We teach them how to drive, so that they'll be aware that there's other tractors besides these big air-conditioned, stereo-equipped monsters that are in the field these days,'' Lee Miller explained. ``You just can't believe how interested those kids are.''

Some of the pieces could be included in an agriculture museum planned as a satellite facility for the county historical museum.

The museum and collectors, including Bob Pfeiler, who leads the museum organizing committee, have accumulated enough equipment over the past several decades to fill several barns. The Flywheelers complement that effort to preserve the county's agricultural heritage, said Ed Robings, the museum's executive director.

``There's more and more people from the cities who moved into this agricultural area who need to understand it. It's part of our heritage,'' Robings said.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--color in CONEJO edition only) Mike Miller, le ft, and his father, Lee, have restored a 1956 Farmall tractor to preserve a piece of machinery that transformed agriculture.

(2--ran in CONEJO edition only) Nick Guriel, who raises cattle in Simi Valley, owns a 1955 Ford skip loader along with three old John Deere tractors.

Tina Gerson/Daily News