The tractor talked. Every spring, Alan Brecka drove by a massive steel frame beckoning just off the turnrow. Despite scars on the belly and rubber rot after a 40-year slumber in 8” of dirt, she was still a beautiful old girl—a KT450 classic, one of only 516 Big Bud tractors manufactured between 1969 and 1991.
Brecka bought her. Winches and cables, he hauled home the 43,000-lb. load and began a complete breakdown from bolts to brakes, cab to clutch, powertrain to paint.
“I’ll never forget being alone in my shop after we’d torn it into over 900 separate pieces,” Brecka says. “I asked myself, ‘What have I done? Am I biting off more than I can chew?’”
Restoration became art in the hands of Brecka—a master craftsman with a chain of remarkable rebuilds from golf carts to classic cars to trucks to tractors. Completed in 2025, the meticulously overhauled KT450 is a labor of love and an absolute rolling beauty.
“Sometimes there’s more to a restoration than seeing or hearing it come back to life—it’s something that has to be felt,” he says. “That’s how it is with this Big Bud. There is something deeper going on.”
In the Blood
Surreal. Peaks of the Rocky Mountains beckon outside Alan Brecka’s farm office window.
His 4,100 acres of wheat, mustard, lentils, pea, flax, and barley are an hour from the towering range, and an hour north of the U.S. border on flats and gentle rolls outside Picture Butte, Alberta.
A walk around his farmyard includes introduction to far more than agriculture machinery, i.e., the showpiece gleam of a 1976 2WD Chevrolet short-bed truck, a 1965 V-8 Chrysler Windsor, a 1952 Mercury M1 truck, and an odd unicorn—a circa-1959 blue golf cart made by Electro-Motive Industries.
Brecka’s grandfather, John, an engineer-blacksmith by trade, immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia in 1938 on the eve of World War ll, and began working in sugarbeet fields around Picture Butte before buying land in 1939. Brecka’s father, Stan, continued farming into the next generation. Brecka, 45, spent 10 years out of high school as a heavy-duty mechanic, before switching full-time to the fields.
“Ever since childhood, I’ve been keen to tear into things, learn how they function, and make them better,” Brecka says. “I’m fascinated by old tidbits of the past, especially mechanical history, and I’ve always felt a sense of genetic aptitude.”
Restoration in the blood. Why not a Big Bud?
Steel Bones
In 2023, Brecka entered the tractor market—poking prices and checking auction trends. “Our farm needed a second four-wheel drive. Why not find something to fix up for way cheaper, instead of paying big money?”
A stone’s throw away, on a farm where Brecka did custom work, the solution to his search hid in plain sight: a KT450 Big Bud and its flip-top cab, with a 13-speed transmission powered by a Cummins 18.8L 6-cyl diesel—a pulling monster built by Northern Manufacturing Company (NMC) in 1978. (In 1969, Willie Hensler and Bud Nelson formed NMC in northcentral Montana’s Hill County. Over 22 years, until the business shuttered in 1991, 516 Big Bud tractors were produced.)
“When I was a kid, my neighbor bought the Big Bud, but didn’t run it very long before the motor quit,” Brecka explains. “They pulled the motor and parked it, basically forever. It was never fixed and sat out in the open for decades. Whether I was seeding or spraying, I’d drive by year after year, and there it was, still aesthetically nice to the eye, engine off to the side.”
Running the numbers, Brecka estimated purchase and refurbishment at a fraction of the price of a new tractor. “I was watching Welker Farms on YouTube and their work motivated me. If they can fix a Big Bud, why can’t I? I predicted a quarter cost of a new 600-hp tractor.”
After barter, a deal was done. On March 1, 2024, Brecka, and his teenaged son, Johnny, along with a farm operator employee, woke the Big Bud KT450 from a 40-year hibernation. They hooked a Case 550 Quadtrac to the KT450, caboosed with a truck to control braking and turning via a winch cable. Rolling at 3-4 mph, the trip was two turns and a straight shot home. All in, the process took a half-day to get the KT450 from turnrow grave to Brecka’s 65’ wide, by 120’ long, by 22’ high shop.
Time to break down the bones of a magnificent beauty.
Puzzle Pieces
“We took it down to bare bolts and had a sea of parts—maybe 800-900 pieces. We took plenty of photographs at every stage of breakdown to make sure reassembly was correct.”
As crop season kicked in, Brecka worked on the Big Bud when time allowed. “Sometimes, I’d walk away for weeks, and sometimes work two to three hours on it after a regular day on the farm.”
Brecka was generous with pity and time. “You gotta be careful in any restoration. Patience is No. 1. It’s almost a guarantee that if you rush at any stage, things will go sideways.”
Transmission, drive shafts, radiator, engine, wiring, radiator, tires—and all points in between—everything was reconditioned or rebuilt. And the most difficult aspect of rebirth, according to Brecka? Sourcing the puzzle pieces.
“It got hard to find almost 50-year-old obsolete parts. Each part meant a different search. The parts are out there, but you have to dig deep on some. I was in contact with Ron Harmon, the original designer of Bid Bud. He and his staff were very helpful.”
Cab interior work was placed in Johnny’s steady hands. “He rebuilt the interior and is very, very skilled. Buddy seat in the corner, sound-deadened cab, all done exactly right. He’s blessed with persistence and is highly task-oriented. When he got done, the cab was perfect.”
Month after month, piece over piece, the Big Bud took shape. “For long periods, it seemed like nothing happened,” Brecka describes. “Then suddenly you put several parts together and you have a rolling tractor.”
Makin’ Smoke
After an estimated 500 hours of shop work, almost a year from the date of purchase, Brecka opened his shop doors and released a beautiful beast—a superb work of art and utility. Immaculate.
Crank and roll. The sound of raw power—a low bark packed with tremendous torque. “It was a true adrenaline rush,” he says. “What a feeling of satisfaction on completion. It was so awesome to see my employees loving it; my son excited; and my wife appreciating it. A job well done by us all together.”
In 2025, Brecka’s Big Bud is already in the field, pulling a vertical disk. And beyond fieldwork, the tractor is drawing attention from prospective drivers. “I’ve already had guys come from hours away just to see it or get a chance to operate it,” Brecka notes. “They’re genuinely appreciative and excited to just sit in the cab and drive it down the row.”
“It’s absolutely amazing to think that you can rebuild something that loud and powerful,” he continues. “And to see others giving a big thumbs-up or breaking into a smile at seeing it without saying anything, that shows that no words are necessary. It just feels right.”
Lessons Gleaned
Next up for Brecka? Completion of wiring and interior for the Mercury 52—a lifelong project he bought at 16 years young. And when the Mercury is done? A 1950 International 2-ton truck is parked in the farmyard, patiently awaiting surgery.
The mechanical lessons gleaned during any restoration extend to life experience, he concludes.
“I’m blessed to have a big shop and mechanical knowledge, but everyone doesn’t have access to restore something as large as I did. But they can still restore something that has meaning and utility in their life.”
“Maybe that something is very small, but it’s just as worthwhile as what I’ve done,” Brecka adds. “Take the time to invest your energy into the right object or project and you’ll touch something deeper.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
