A special-edition 25th-anniversary (front wheel assist) tractor has been unveiled by Versatile – the Canadian tractor manufacturer.
“It’s still the same production line in Winnipeg that we’ve always had so, for the 25th anniversary, we decided to do something a little different and paint one black – with a silver fleck,” explained Adam Reid, director of marketing for Versatile, when speaking to North American outlet RealAgriculture.
Reid was referring to the 365hp model (pictured above) that debuted at a recent show in Canada.
Though the brand is not especially well known here in Ireland, tractors from that same factory were sold here. The first Ford ‘Genesis‘ (70 Series) tractor rolled off the production line in Winnipeg in September of 1993.
The new special-edition tractor – a one-off – marks 25 years of production of mechanical front-wheel-drive tractors at that site. Over the years, those tractors have been sold under many brand-names, including Ford / New Holland, Buhler and Versatile.
Don’t forget, also, the short-lived Landini Starland (pictured below). As is clearly evident from its outward appearance, these tractors were built for Landini by – as it was known then – Buhler Versatile.
Versatile was taken over by Rostselmash in 2007. Rostselmash is a Russian manufacturer of some considerable scale. The company produces large numbers of combines – and also self-propelled foragers – for its native Russian market and the surrounding regions.
Interesting to note…
Interestingly, many North Americans refer to ‘conventional’ tractors with a powered/driven front axle (such as the example pictured below) as ‘front wheel assist‘ models. Here in Europe, we refer to such tractors as ‘four-wheel drive‘ (4WD) units.
When North Americans refer to ‘four-wheel drive‘ tractors, they typically mean big, articulated (pivot-steer) tractors – with equal-size wheels all round (such as the tractor pictured below).
