At almost every mostra scambio/swap meet I've been to in Italy over the last 20 years, there's always a group of blokes with their old Landinis, and they always put on a great show. Testa calda means literally hot head, and it refers to the practice of heating up the cylinder head and the diesel within it of these single cylinder behemoths with a flame, then manually starting the whole thing with a deft few rolls of the massive external flywheel. They can run backwards or forwards, and the owners wow bystanders by switching from one direction to another, and getting the motor to tick over at massivley reduced revs, bit like the Guzzi single owners. The Landini tractor revolutionised Italian agriculture, and the earlier machines are now highly sought after.
I spotted this one at Mugello autojumble earlier this year, believed to be from the late '40s. Built to last and with lots of nice details and castings all over it, much like many Italian motorcycles from the same era.
Watch the video to see how it's done:
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