Germany has a strong association with systems tractors, stemming from a long held view that tractors are multipurpose vehicles rather than the more focused machines favoured by pre-war Anglo American manufacturers.
Lanz, amongst others, was typical of this approach, often creating two variants of a single model, one equipped for field work and the other set up for road haulage, a feature which saw the continent adopt the habit of four-wheel trailers as opposed to single or twin axle items, a custom it still retains.
Multi-role tractors
The years following the conflict saw tractors being imported from the US and elsewhere.
Naturally these had an influence on home-grown designs although the provision of a seat on the mudguards didn’t fade from the scene until cabs became more widespread.
Yet, the view that tractors should be able to perform a multitude of tasks was was still strong and the 1950S and 1960s saw a multitude of tool carriers, including the Claas Huckepack, being produced to work large areas of root crops, which were still a significant part of the diet.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Claas started to develop a new hydrostatic transmission for its combine harvesters, this was known as the HSG project and a dual purpose tractor/truck was created as a test mule.
During the work on the HSG project it started to take on a life of its own, so much so, that it was decided to produce it as a product in its own right and a distribution agreement with Daimler-Benz was proposed for the new tractor.
Whether this latter company saw the vehicle as a replacement for the Unimog is not known, however, the news of Deutz developing a systems tractor, the Intrac, spurred it to create a model of its own, which became the MB Trac.
Claas goes it alone with the Xerion
Naturally, any further cooperation was out of the question, and so the HSG tractor, once seen as an entry to the high-end tractor market, was quietly shelved in 1972.
The idea was not totally forgotten though, and six years later it was brought back to life as Project 207, and it is at this point that the Xerion, as we know it today, was born.
Despite this new found enthusiasm, it took until 1993 for the concept to be made public and then it was not until 1997 that it actually became available to purchase.
At its heart lay the HM-8 infinitely variable transmission driving the permanently engaged equal sized wheels, the culmination of the development work undertaken since 1968.
It also came with the novel option of a revolving cab. Up until this time, reverse drive tractors had relied on swivelling the seat within the cab so the driver faced a new set of controls. Rotating the whole cab was a dramatic advance on the concept.
MAN power
During its development it was fitted with a 200hp engine from MAN, although it is often suggested that it was a Caterpillar unit, these came later, in the Xerion 3300 of 2004.
The first production models enjoyed a power jump to 250hp for the Xerion 2500 and 300hp for the Xerion 3000, the engine now being a six-cylinder Perkins 1306-9TA in both. An extra 15hp was granted to each in a revamp of 1999.
Claas had already entered the top end of the tractor market with the introduction of the Challenger tracked machines in 1995. These represented one of the last attempts by Caterpillar to stay in the tractor business; it painted them in the Claas livery for sale within Europe.
Ambition fulfilled
They stayed within the Claas range until AGCO bought the Challenger business from Caterpillar in 2001, leaving the Xerion as Claas’s only tractor, and that served just the the premium end of the market.
This situation was finally resolved when Claas purchased the Renault tractor business a couple of years later, giving the company the long desired range of standard machines to go alongside its sophisticated systems tractor of much greater horsepower.
In a move that further emphasised the gap between the home-grown tractor and the recently acquired Renault range, the Xerion was given a major facelift in 2004 which saw a ZF transmission replace the company’s own unit, the very item the tractor had been built as a test mule for.
To go along with this, and an accompanying change in model designation, it also saw Caterpillar engines being fitted with an increase in output for the two models to 335 horsepower for the 3300 and 364 horsepower for the 3800.
Cabover added to Xerion range
A third cab option was also introduced which sat it above the engine. Known as the Saddle Trac, the option cleared the rear ‘deck’ of the tractor to allow the fitting of fully mounted slurry tanks or sprayers.
This second generation of models did not fully fade from the scene until 2013 despite a third generation being introduced in 2009. These were the Xerion 4000 and 5000 with 449hp and 487hp respectively.
To obtain these higher outputs, the Cat C9 engine was replaced by the the Cat C13 which was still a six-cylinder unit but of 12.5L displacement rather than 8.8L.
Xerion today
In 2014, came the latest iteration of the Xerion range as the 4000 and 5000 were updated and given a Mercedes Benz engine.
It saw further power increases with the 5000 now having 509hp, the 4500 was blessed with 480hp and a third model, the 4200, came upon the scene boasting a somewhat more modest 458hp.
This is the range as it stands now, three power levels, each with three cab options and the larger two also being available with triangular crawler tracks (Trac TS) to give the Case Quadtrac a run for its money.
Claas claims that sales of the Xerion have doubled over the last three years with up to 400 machines being sold annually. This is moving it well out of a niche market, and into the mainstream and Claas with it.
Not bad for a company that came to the party decades later than all the other big manufacturers, and it must be about due for another revamp.
