History. IH Cub Cadet was a premium line of small tractors, established in 1960 as part of International Harvester.The IH Cub Cadet was an entirely new line of heavy-duty small tractors using components from the previous Cub series tractors. In 1981, IH sold the Cub Cadet division to the MTD corporation CCC, which took over production and use of the Cub Cadet brand name (without the IH symbol ...