HISTORY

          My name is John Hahn and I own and operate Hahn Tractor Seats where we specialize in Antique Caterpillar Cushions.  My history and fascination with Caterpillar began when I was just a boy.

          I was born on a dry land cattle ranch in Kiowa, Colorado.  You could call me a 1940 model.  Later my dad, Joe Hahn, moved our family to western Colorado where at the age of 12, he put me on a Caterpillar TWENTY skidding logs.  From that moment on, I wanted to be a heavy equipment operator. A seed was planted and my dream took root when my family moved to Idaho.  While in high school, I worked on a dry land wheat and cattle ranch and operated an AC HD7 doing farm work.  I also pulled a #51 IH hillside combine.  At nineteen, I joined the Amy and was placed with the engineering battalion.  It didn’t take too long for them to find out I had some experience on machinery, and I was called upon to teach others to be operators on the D7 and D8.

          After the service, I followed construction, operating and working on heavy equipment for about ten years.  I worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, selling and servicing giant earthmover tires on several dam sites and road projects.  Even while in college, studying to become a pastor, I drove a concrete mixer, unable to get it out of my blood.  As a pastor for twenty years, I stayed connected by helping on construction projects.  I operated Cats and hillside combines, drove farm trucks and mixers, worked in the woods, and operated a D7 pushing snow and skidding logs. 

          After retiring from the ministry in 1991, I started “Hahn Mobile Upholstery” business.  My folks had been in the upholstery business since 1953, so I had been around it for most of my life.  I found that contractors, ranchers, logging shops, mills and lots of other businesses needed seats replaced but couldn’t get the seats to the shop…so I took the shop to them. “Have Seat, Will Travel” was on my business card.

          In 1994, I joined the ACMOC and took my mobile seat business to Brooks, Oregon to the Antique Powerland Tractor Show.   I had an immediate interest and desire to do something to help restore Cats for avid collectors.  That decision was the beginning of an amazing journey that has placed my seats on tractors all over the world.   Who would have imagined that a retired preacher from Craigmont, ID would be shipping hundreds of seats from coast to coast in the United States, and around the world to Spain, England, Ireland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Africa.  My idea to reproduce seat cushions for Caterpillars has hit the mainstream of those who share my interest.

          I have created several hundred seats for restored Caterpillars, Holt, Best, IH, JD, AC and Cletrac.  A set of shelves in my shop hold discolored books-the original sales books, which shows exactly what all the parts look like and part #’s.  Each book and many new books hold the information needed to make those old Cats look new.  For me it means the pictures of what the original seats look like.  I do my best to ship a product that will fit your particular tractor.  I am continually upgrading the patterns and workmanship to manufacture a product that will enhance your restoration.