Shannon Valley Group, the civil engineering company owned by Mick English, has purchased Ireland's first 552hp Fendt 1052. The Dublin-based dealer Farmworks Machinery described the 14t machine as the largest Fendt in the country.
The tractor is powered by a 12.4L six-cylinder MAN engine that produces 2,650Nm of torque. English said that power was one of the main reasons he upgraded to the 1052, having first seen the model at Agritechnica.
He said the company bought a 1050 three years ago and has since put 4,000 to 5,000 hours on it, and that it was happy enough with that machine to choose the new model. The business has run Fendts for seven or eight years, he added, and for him a Fendt is simply a Fendt.
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 takes advice from the manufacturers of those attachments when buying tractors, and that whichever of them he speaks to, they recommend Fendt. He described the brand as the Rolls-Royce of tractors, a view he attributed to the equipment makers rather than to himself.
Working machine, not a showpiece
English rejected the suggestion that large tractors can be bought largely for appearance. He said the 1052 is at its limit when working in the ground milling limestone boulders and hard clays, with the whole tractor being pulled down, and that the more power available, the easier the work is on the machine.
English is from Co. Leitrim and has 35 years of earthmoving experience. Like many contractors, he was involved with tractors from a very young age. His father started in 1976 with a Massey 35 and then a Massey 165, machines that came without the luxury of a cab. Asked whether he imagined then that he would one day own one of Ireland's largest tractors, English said a Massey 165 was the equivalent of today's Fendt 1052 in the 1970s, in Co. Leitrim at least.
He remembers his father's 165 as a mark one model with round axles and a small Perkins 203 engine, and recalls 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. English's father started the business in London in 1966, where he bought brand-new JCB 3C diggers, and moved it back home to Leitrim in 1970, bringing the JCBs and other equipment with him. He was among the first in Ireland to have JCB machines.
Today Shannon Valley Group runs more than 200 diggers, including a 75t Hitachi Zaxis 690-7 bought in 2020, which at the time was the first of its kind sold in Europe. English said he will probably buy another Fendt 1052 next year as well.