A civil engineering contractor has taken delivery of what its dealer describes as the largest Fendt tractor in Ireland, a 552hp 1052 model bought by Shannon Valley Group.
Company owner Mick English said the 14t machine, supplied by Dublin-based dealer Farmworks Machinery, is "a massive tractor" when seen in the flesh. It is the first 1052 in the country, according to the report.
Power was central to the purchase. The tractor uses a 12.4-litre, six-cylinder MAN engine producing 2,650Nm of torque. English said he traded up after first seeing the model at Agritechnica, having run a 1050 for three years and put 4,000 to 5,000 hours on it.
"We are happy with it so we went for the new model," he said, adding that the company has run Fendt tractors for seven or eight years because "a Fendt is a Fendt".
Heavy-duty workload
In work, the 1052 will carry a 3.5t weight on the front and a 9t hybrid stone-crushing and soil-stabilisation machine on the rear. English said he follows the advice of the manufacturers of those attachments when specifying tractors, and that whichever of them he speaks to recommends Fendt.
"Fendt is the Rolls-Royce. It's not our say; it's their say," he said.
He rejected the idea that a tractor of this size is bought for show. Milling limestone boulders and hard clays pushes the machine to its limit, he said, with the whole tractor pulled down in the work. "The more power you have, the easier it is on the tractor."
Earthmoving roots
English, from Co. Leitrim, has 35 years of earthmoving experience and, like most contractors, grew up around tractors. His father began in 1976 with a Massey 35 and later a Massey 165, machines that in 1970s Leitrim were the equivalent of today's 1052, he said. He recalled climbing onto the mark one 165 — with round axles and a small Perkins 203 engine — as a three-year-old and jumping off crying at the noise when the throttle was opened, and he still keeps those tractors.
The family business started in London in 1966, when his father bought new JCB 3C diggers, before moving home to Leitrim in 1970 with the machines. Shannon Valley Group now runs more than 200 diggers, including a 75t Hitachi Zaxis 690-7 bought in 2020 that was the first of its kind sold in Europe at the time.
English said he will "probably buy another Fendt 1052 next year as well".