Jubilee models to celebrate New Holland milestone
NEW Holland’s Basildon tractor plant will celebrate half a century of continuous tractor operations in 2014.
To commemorate this important milestone, Golden Jubilee editions of the T7.270 Auto Command and T6.160 Auto Command trac tors are being produced and a range of celebratory events will take place throughout the year.
These exclusive tractors were unveiled at the Lamma Show for the first time last month.
New Holland s ay they will only be built during the Jubilee year, limiting their number to create two future Basildon icons.
In addition to these two celebratory tractors, all models produced in Basildon in 2014 will feature a special 50 th anniversary decal.
“The New Holland plant at Basildon has been at the centre of our tractor operations for 50 years,” said Carlo Lambro, brand president of New Holland Agriculture.
“Today it produces tractors in the 120-270hp range, which are helping farmers and contractors across the globe to farm in an ever more productive, sustainable and efficient manner.”
The T7.270 Auto Command is the most powerful tractor ever to be built at Basildon, while the firm claims its T6.160 Auto Command model represents the f uture of multipurpose agriculture.
1.6M TRACTORS
The construction of a purposebuilt factory for the fully integrated production of tractors began in 1962, and May 15, 1964 saw the very first tractors go down the production line of Europe’s most modern tractor manufacturing facility.
Since 1964, over 1.6 million tractors and 3.1 million engines have been produced at Basildon.
Today the plant employs more than 1,000 people dedicated to producing industry-leading tractors.
The facility can accommodate more than 10,000 different product specifications, with 85pc of total production exported across the globe.
Basildon’s tractors themselves have shaped modern agricultural history, dating back to the first Ford 1000 series models of the mid-1960s.
The Ford 40 series were ground-breaking models in the early 1990s.
They featured the renowned Power Star engines, also built at Basildon.
These trac tors improved farming comfort thanks to the cab, which offered a quiet, roomy operating space, advanced closed centre load sensing hydraulics and the forerunner of the Electro Command semi-powershift transmission, the Electro Shift.
European sales of this 75120hp range reached t he 100,000 unit mark.
More recently, the TS series was launched in the late 1990s and was an evolution of the 40 series.
This range was the first to feature New Holland’s distinctive styling, characterised by the sloping hood.
It was also the very first range to benefit from Tier 1 emissions technolog y. The TM range, developing between 120-190hp and popular with Irish contractors, became synonymous with excellent performance and ease of use thanks to the introduction of front axle suspension.
It was al s o t he first range to benefit from productivity enhancing engine power management technology.