I have an update for you on the Steiger Pink Panther. For those who may not have heard on my radio show, my father owned an auto body repair shop in town and often times when Steiger needed a tractor “specially” painted Dad got the job. We painted 35 plus tractors red, white and blue for the American Bi-centennial. But the oddest request was yet to come. Steiger gave Pop a call stating they had a man in Oklahoma who just bought one of their new Steiger Panther III’s and wanted it painted….are you ready? Pink! That’s right Pink!!!

Now, there was some over the years who thought this was some kind of urban legend. Who the heck would do that to one of those beauties? Let me give you some of the story. I got a call from Dakota Toy Farmer magazine talking about the Bi-centennials and I was asked what I knew about a Pink Panther. I told them there was one…how did I know? I helped paint it. The search was on. My father died a number of years ago but some of his retired friends at Steiger were able to give me some leads on tracking it down. I talked with the salesman from Steiger, the dealership to where it was sent, and found the identity of the person who bought it. It was not easy. The FBI would have been proud of me. The man who bought it passed away several years earlier.

A man by the name Dean Knight bought it and I had a conversation with his widow Louise. Mr. Knight was a manufacturer of natural gas compressors and raced Ferrari’s on weekends. He had 2 of them. He had a few bucks. So what kind of crops did they raise on their farm. I remember she gave me a giggle and said there were no crops. It was a sod farm. Plain old grass.

I heard a lot of rumors why they painted it pink. A paint chip book was slid in front his wife and she closed her eyes and picked it out. Another was that all the buildings on the farm were pink, therefore the tractor would be also. Coming close to the real reason was a story that Mr. Knight had had an accident in a green boat or plane.

But here’s the real reason. There is a superstition in racing that you don’t drive a GREEN automobile. Gaston Chevrolet was killed in a green automobile in 1920 and the superstition has continued off and on for years.

It was NOT going to be green, so there was a popular movie out at the time, one of the Pink Panther versions and they just thought it would be fun to paint it pink. Did it get attention in Oklahoma? Several of the TV stations around Tulsa came out to cover the story of the arrival of this odd machine working the fields of grass.

Another farmer purchased the Pink Panther after Dean died but because somebody was joking around the cab one night and draped a pair of women’s pink panties over the steering wheel, that was enough it was going back to green.

I believe it exchanged hands 1 more time before I finally tracked it down. Still in Oklahoma, now green and in need of some engine work. But over the last couple of years on the fields, the green was wearing off and that crazy pink was starting to shine through.

When the story broke in various magazines and the Toy Farmer that it had been found, a man from Indiana stepped up and made an offer and purchased the Pink/Green Stiegor tractor with his eye on renovating it, including restoring it to its total “pinkness.” As I understand, the renovation price tag has become much higher than he expected. But he’s trying to raise the funds to do it and then possibly touring the country at various county fairs to help offset the costs.

Fargo has been known for a lot of things over the years. The Coen brothers movie, professional athletes, great theatre and musicians, floods and more…plus now “The Pink Panther.” Oh it’s real, there was only one, and I helped paint it.