It’s more than half a century since David Brown’s ground-breaking 770 Selectamatic rolled off the assembly line at the company’s Meltham Mills plant.

And over the weekend hundreds of people including dozens of former employees and enthusiasts from Europe gathered at the Tractors Museum to celebrate the achievement in building the landmark machines which proved an immediate hit.

The 770 was the first to have an easy-to-use Selectamatic hydraulic system and other improved features and the first one came off the assembly line in January 1965.

Peter Murray, secretary of the David Brown Tractor Club, said: “Over the weekend we celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the introduction of brown and white coloured Selectamatic tractors and on Saturday we had a reunion of David Brown tractor employees.

“Despite all the rain it didn’t cause any problems and there were around 300 people turned up including perhaps 50-60 David Brown employees.

“We had 18 tractors in the museum and 60 in the field and we had 70 in the field on Sunday.

“It’s been a good do, a very successful event.

“I have seen all sorts of people from way back, I was an area sales manager here for 23 years so I know a lot of people.

“But we have had David Brown enthusiasts come from Ireland, Sweden, France, Belgium and Denmark.

“People are very interested in our history of manufacturing these vehicles, we were very busy showing them round the old facilities and factory tours.

“It’s been very popular. People can see how to work the hydraulics.

“The enthusiasm for David Brown tractors is quite incredible and they are still sold in huge numbers across the world.”