In 1937, John Deere hired well known industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss from New York City to re-style Deere & Company's agricultural equipment, especially its tractors. In the fall of 1937, a John Deere tractor engineer was sent to New York to ask Dreyfuss to redesign the tractors. Legend has it that Dreyfuss was so intrigued by the project, that he took a train to Waterloo that very night. Dreyfuss learned to operate the tractors, and worked with them in the field to gain firsthand knowledge of the changes that needed to be made. The first two letter series tractors (the A and B) were the first to receive the new modern styling, and other models were added later. The Dreyfuss styling was intended to help Deere & Company compete with the forthcoming Farmall "letter series" of tractors, which, along with the Ford-Ferguson, were John Deere's largest competition at this time. Dreyfuss and the Waterloo engineers perfected the styled design that was used on all John Deere tractors, with only minor changes through to 1959.