Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: What better way to get your town on the map than make it home to one of Australia's big things? From the big banana in Coffs Harbour to the golden guitar at Tamworth, and now a towering tractor in the WA town of Carnamah. My name is Alice Angeloni and this is the Make Me Feel Good Podcast.
Young boy: I'm just excited to see when it's fully built and how big it is. Because I work on a farm and we have tractors on our farm so I'm going to see if it's close, like, related to it or not.
Alice Angeloni: Set to be nearly 12 metres tall, it really captures the imagination.
Young boy: It's going to be bigger than a real tractor and I'm on a farm so that's exciting.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: It's been nearly 40 years since one of these iconic Chamberlain tractors stopped being manufactured in Australia, so building one five times the size is no mean feat.
Xavier Sequeira, Big Tractor project manager: Not at this scale, no. This is kind of unique.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: To get an idea of the scale, Xavier Sequeira showed me to the shop floor where the tractor is being built.
Xavier Sequeira, Big Tractor project manager: This is roughly the area that they're working in. This is our sheet metal area. All the works at the moment is happening in this area. We've got our press machines over there, our roller machine down there and we're doing our stitch welding at the moment over here.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: The workshop is ginormous and it's not even big enough to fit the tractor in its entirety.
Xavier Sequeira, Big Tractor project manager: Overall we're dealing with a tractor, when it's completely built, it's going to be just over 17 metres long, just over 9.5 metres wide at the widest point and 11 metres high. We most likely will bolt it all together and assemble it somewhere in the shop and make sure it fits before we transport it down to Carnamah.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: Local farmer Brendan Huesler has been leading the big tractor project on the ground in Carnamah. He shows me through the town's vintage tractor museum.
Brendan Haeusler, Big Tractor project chairman: Alright, well, come on through to Hal Walton's Chamberlain John Deere tractor museum. Mind the obstacles. These tractors were integral in clearing and developing huge tracts of WA's agricultural land. Without these, our landscape wouldn't look the same. It would probably, no I shouldn't say that. It would probably look better because there would be more trees left, but you're going to edit this aren't you?
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: Finding the tiny farming town in a state as big as WA is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the big tractor is set to change things.
Brendan Haeusler, Big Tractor project chairman: It ties in perfectly with the Chamberlain John Deere museum and then having the giant replica here as well. So people can come and look at the giant replica, learn a bit about the history of agriculture and engineering and tractors. And then come and check out 100 restored. A lot of, yeah, just about every farmer's owned several Chamberlains.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: He says they have high hopes the big tractor will also benefit their local economy.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: Everyone's pretty excited. Yeah, they have something to draw people to Carnamah, make it a destination instead of just a stopover. So yeah, hopefully it'll create a few jobs. It'll definitely increase the vibrancy of the town.
Young boy: Excited because it'll bring a lot of tourists to Carnamah and they will love to see it. Because it's a small town and lots of people are not really into Carnamah. And it's isolated apparently.
Alice Angeloni, ABC reporter: Until next time, thanks for listening.
