Please welcome the flag waving, money saving, always smiling, quite beguiling, 18-foot-high, super-nice guy… Ernie the Giant Tractor Salesman! This gregarious goliath has been Shepparton’s most eligible bachelor for more than three decades, and currently works at the family-owned Konigs Agricultural Supermarket.
The eternally-eleemosynary Ernie started work way back in 1992, and is yet to miss a day! He’s polite, kind and never shies away from a photo, so it’s always the right time for a Weekend at Ernie’s.
“People may not know the word Konigs, but if they want to know where we are they say look for the big man who flies the flag,” owner Leo Schoonderbeek recalled during his company’s 25th birthday extravaganza. “I think there are generations now in Shepparton that know Ernie from their younger days.”
Ernie was the friendly face of Shepparton long before he moved in with Leo and the gang. He was originally constructed to sell quality cars, and was hauled around to school fetes and baby showers. He was, of course, always a gentleman and very well regarded within the community.
“Ernie was a promotional item for Ford New Holland for a number of years. They called him for tenders and I bought him. The main reason was to add an attraction to our business.’’
Come for the giant statue of a handsome man, stay for the extensive collection of reasonably-priced farm machinery!
Ernie was packed and ready to move into his new digs. The Konigs team were preparing for an era of unprecedented success. But disaster was just around the corner, and Ernie almost never made it to his new home.
Where’s your head at?
“A truck arrives one day, a big semi-trailer with three boxes,” Leo recounted with a look of shock upon his face. “They were quite huge boxes, we opened the biggest and that was Ernie’s head. There were only two boxes left and I said, ‘Well something’s wrong here!’
“We opened another box and it was one arm, and then there was hardly anything left so we opened the third box and it was his other arm. There was no torso for Ernie! I’m on the phone saying, ‘Fellas, there’s something wrong, I’ve only got two arms and a head’. The search was on to find Ernie.
“Apparently what they had sent was Ernie’s spare parts. They went and searched for Ernie and found that one of the dealers hadn’t returned him so they had to box the complete Ernie up and send him across.”
Finally, Ernie was installed on a sunny Saturday afternoon with the help of a crane. Most Sheppartonians were on hand to welcome their newest – and by far largest! – resident. It wasn’t to be Ernie’s forever home, however, with Konigs relocating in 1995 to the current premises. The big boy’s certainly moved around a lot for a fella with no legs!
Ernie to the Centre of the Earth
Ernie is one of the most imposing Big Things in Australia, dwarfing other humongous humans such as the Coota Giant and the Big Girl. He’s been lovingly maintained and looks every bit as dashing as the day he swaggered into Shepparton.
Ernie’s so charming, in fact, that he made it seem like a good idea to buy a Deutz Agrotron 265 tractor with a turbo charged engine, four-speed powershift transmission and a set of four electronic remote valves. I live in a third-floor condominium in Newtown, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. Ah well, maybe I can use it to trim the shag-pile carpet.
Oh, and how much does Ernie weigh? About six Sheppar-tonnes!
