The song remains the SAME
Our technical editor finds a four-wheel drive beauty that had once been much the worse for wear after a hard spell of woodland duty.
Words & photos: Jerry Thurston
The 1973 Same 80 seen here is a credit to its owner, ex-haulage contractor Brian Blackburn, who now spends his time restoring tractors in his spacious workshops next to his home on Humberside.
Sitting among the more often found British market tractors, the restored SAME makes a startling contrast with its bright orange and blue paintwork positively glowing in the weak spring sunshine.
The SAME’s appearance is striking from any angle.
It didn’t always look like this though, for after a career in agriculture the 80hp Saturno found itself co-opted as a forestry tractor in nearby woods – a career undoubtedly chosen because of its four-wheel drive.
Anyone who has rescued a tractor from the rigours of woodland duty will know that, short of byre work, it’s probably the best way to reduce the tinwork to a crumpled shadow of its former self.
The SAME 80 was no exception, and when it was first bought for preservation, its distinctive bonnet was smashed back towards the front of the engine, and the square-cut wings were even worse, having suffered the ignominy of rust as well as constant contact with unyielding trees.
Replacement of the wings appeared to be a necessity, and first came the good news: new wings were still available from SAME. Hooray! Then came the bad news: the cost would be £650 to £800 each. Ouch!
You can take dedication to a cause too far, and faced with having to stump up all that dosh, Brian baulked – and I don’t blame him! Instead, he opted to take the damaged remnants of the original wings to a local chap renowned for his ability to work metal. Some tens of hours later, they emerged, butterfly like, restored and looking good – and best of all at a far more reasonable cost.
The smashed bonnet received similar treatment, and care and attention with hammers and dollies gradually smoothed out the damaged metal until it, too, was looking as if it had just been pressed at the Italian factory.
The cab was a different matter. Corrosion and damage had rendered it useless, and reluctantly Brian decided that enough was enough, and dispensed with it, leaving the machine cabless and, to my mind, with much more of a continental air.
A fine coat of paint and new badges moved the restoration further, and a fresh seat finished it off, leaving the Saturno looking as you see it on the photographs. There are just a couple of small areas that need to be attended to in the fullness of time: the speedometer/hours meter isn’t working, so will need investigating. It might be just the cable or something more serious, but time will tell.
The normally aspirated, four-cylinder, air-cooled 254 cu in (about four litres) engine produces 78hp, hence its ‘80’ designation, with the engineers at SAME claiming six to 10 per cent more power over similar-displacement engines because of the swirl design cylinder head – a claim backed up by most engine theory books that talk about swirl within cylinder heads helping the way the fuel burns by exposing more of it to the flame within a shorter time frame.
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