Shannon Valley Group, the civil engineering company owned by Mick English, has bought Ireland's first 552hp Fendt 1052. Farmworks Machinery, a Dublin-based dealer, supplied the 14t tractor and described it as the largest Fendt in the country.
The 1052 uses a 12.4-litre, six-cylinder MAN engine rated at 2,650Nm of torque. English said the power output was one of the main reasons he moved up to the new model after first seeing it at Agritechnica.
The purchase follows the company's experience with a Fendt 1050 bought three years ago. That tractor has accumulated 4,000 to 5,000 hours, and English said the company had been happy with it. He added that Shannon Valley has run Fendts for seven or eight years, summing up the brand preference by saying that a Fendt is a Fendt.
In work, the 1052 will carry a 3.5t weight on the front and pull a 9t hybrid stone-crushing and soil-stabilisation machine on the back. English said he takes advice from the manufacturers of those attachments when buying tractors. According to him, those manufacturers' research consistently leads them to recommend Fendt, which he described as the Rolls-Royce of tractors.
English rejected the idea that a large tractor might be bought mainly for show. He said the machine is at its limit when working into the ground to mill limestone boulders and hard clays, with the whole tractor being pulled down. In his view, more power makes the work easier on the tractor.
English is from Co. Leitrim and has 35 years of earthmoving experience. Like many contractors, he was involved with tractors from a young age. His father started in 1976 with a Massey 35 and then a Massey 165, machines that English noted did not have the luxury of a cab.
He recalled that the family's 165 was a mark one model with round axles and a small Perkins 203 engine. He remembered climbing onto the tractor at three years of age when it arrived in the yard and jumping off again in tears because of the noise when the throttle was opened. The family still has those tractors, he said.
The business has a history of buying new equipment. English said his father started the company in London in 1966, where he bought brand-new JCB 3C diggers, and moved the business back to Leitrim in 1970 with the JCBs and other machinery. Shannon Valley now has more than 200 diggers, including a 75t Hitachi Zaxis 690-7 bought in 2020, which was the first of its kind sold in Europe at that time.
English said he will probably buy another Fendt 1052 next year as well.