Dozens of vintage vehicles will take centre stage at the Royal Bath & West Show when the three-day event opens at the Shepton Mallet Showground from May 28-30. Visitors will be able to get up close to tractors dating from the 1920s through to the late 1990s, with many of the restored machines still in full working order.

Among the star attractions are a 1926 Fordson Model F and a 1998 Massey Ferguson, showing the range on display across the vintage vehicle area. Steve Rodd, who is hoping to exhibit his own 1934 Guy Wolf flatbed lorry, said the show is about far more than farming, adding that there really is something for everyone.

The timing gives the display an added edge. In 2026, it will be 80 years since production began for the Grey Ferguson tractor, first produced in 1946 and built in numbers of more than half a million within a decade. That machine is often described as having helped shape the modern tractor industry, and the show is using its vintage line-up to underline that legacy while drawing a crowd that might otherwise come for the livestock and fields, not the engines and steel.

The attraction is not limited to tractors. Visitors can also expect commercial vehicles, steam engines and a display of 25 stationary engines, including rare models dating back to 1908. Rodd said the machines are an important part of history and that a visit to the vintage vehicle area is not just a chance to view pieces from the past, but an opportunity to see how things were done and where things have come from.

That is what makes the display more than a static museum piece. Some of the vehicles will be working examples, and that matters because it gives the show a living link to the age when the Grey Ferguson and its peers were built to be used, repaired and kept going. For visitors in Shepton Mallet, the appeal is not simply nostalgia. It is the chance to see machinery that still does the job it was built for, and to understand why these vehicles remain part of the story of British agriculture.

As the Royal Bath & West Show opens this week, the vintage area is set to be one of its strongest draws. With tractors from nearly a century apart, engines from 1908 and the prospect of Rodd’s 1934 lorry joining the line-up, the event is positioning itself as both a showground attraction and a working lesson in agricultural history.