What's the best brand of tractor for off roading?

I like the craftsman older models myself, they seem to be built better.

I like my old fords, but they are too rare to cut up.

Other than that. Whatever is cheapest and running

yeah i like the fords to but just to restore. i missed a chance on one a few days ago. live and learn.

Murray's are nice!

have a couple of murrays, not decided what to do with them yet. one is a hydro so its out for anything. other is a 12/38 6 sp.

The Murray I have for a profile photo is a Murray pro. It had a hydro, but I swapped it out for a craftsman shiftable transaxle. It works great. And that steering is AMAZING.

The best tractor for modding is whatever you can find. With the right mods any tractor can be great!

Free. That's the best kind.
They all have their strong points and drawbacks. Frame wise, AYP channel frames (like davidgt6000's pic) and Murray wide bodies are at the top of the list IMO. Much better than the pan chassis Murrays and MTDs.
I don't think any company's stock steering setup is particularly good... They all need improvements to survive abuse.
Driveline wise, Variable speeds (any manufacturer) and all light duty hydros are at the bottom of the list for me. Peerless transaxles are in the top of their class, much better than Foote & DANA/Spicer boxes.

I agree with freebies - but any tractor can be modded to offroad , pan chassis tractors will work, but would work better with reinforcing - I put my old agway pan chassis to the test every time i went up to my folks - it handled the abuse pretty good. I ran over stumps, fallen trees, up hills, thru mud and water all the time with it and it was stock.

Only change i did was to put turf tires on the front to turn in the mud better. Best thing about it is the 600 series peerless trans in it - heavy duty trans.

what was the peerless in mainly? are they hard to find? this gt6000 has a foote in it. 6 speed hi/lo big ole transaxle though, thought it may hold up good.

i got this craftsman today, 14 hp briggs twin, looks like crap but runs fairly decent,think it needs carb cleaned or rebuilt, was sitting in a barn for last few yrs.

Nice! I have a peerless (700 I think) gear box out of a toro rear engine rider. They're fairly cheap and easy to find.

the best is obvious, its some thing cheap that you can get cheap parts for.

any murray lawn mower is good a mtd wont do any thing if you have something like a wheel horse or cub or something heavy duty like that a mtd is WAY to cheap made