Civil engineering contractor Shannon Valley Group has taken delivery of a 552hp Fendt 1052, a tractor its owner describes as Ireland's first, and one that Dublin-based supplying dealer Farmworks Machinery says is the largest Fendt in the country.
The 14t machine is powered by a 12.4-litre, six-cylinder MAN engine producing 2,650Nm of torque. Owner Mick English said that output was one of the main reasons he moved up to the 1052, having first seen the model at Agritechnica.
"We bought a 1050 three years ago and we have 4,000 or 5,000 hours on it; we are happy with it so we went for the new model," he said. The company has run Fendt tractors for seven or eight years, a choice English sums up simply: "a Fendt is a Fendt."
Weight front and rear
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 takes advice from the manufacturers of those attachments when specifying a tractor.
"The manufacturers of the equipment that we use have done all their research, and no matter which one of them you speak to, they will all tell you to buy Fendt," he said, adding that in his view "Fendt is the Rolls-Royce" — a judgement he attributes to the attachment makers rather than to himself.
Working machine, not a showpiece
Large tractors are sometimes dismissed as being bought for show, but English said the 1052's power is put to work. "That tractor is on her limit when you drop into the ground to mill limestone boulders and hard clays; the whole tractor gets pulled down," he said. "The more power you have, the easier it is on the tractor."
Five decades of earthmoving
English, who is from Co. Leitrim, has 35 years of earthmoving experience and, like most contractors, was involved with tractors from a young age. His father started in 1976 with a Massey 35 and then a Massey 165 — machines, he recalled, that came without the luxury of a cab.
Asked whether he could have imagined then owning one of Ireland's largest tractors, English said that in the 1970s a Massey 165 was the equivalent of today's Fendt 1052 — "in Co. Leitrim, it was anyways." His father's 165 was a mark one model with round axles and a small Perkins 203 engine. He remembers climbing onto it at three years of age when it arrived into the yard, and jumping straight back off in tears at the noise when the throttle was pulled. He still has those tractors.
Buying new machines runs in the family: his father was among the first in Ireland to own JCB equipment, having started the business in London in 1966 with brand-new JCB 3C diggers before moving it back home to Leitrim in 1970 and bringing the machines with him.
Shannon Valley Group now runs more than 200 diggers, including a 75t Hitachi Zaxis 690-7 bought in 2020 — at that time the first of its kind to be sold in Europe. English said he will "probably buy another Fendt 1052 next year as well."