Driving impression: Kubota M9540 tractor At the beginning of 2008, Kubota outlined its plans to make greater inroads into the northern European agricultural tractor market. A previous drive in the company’s range-topping 128hp M128X tractor (profi 01/09) left us in no doubt the company has some decent kit in its armoury. But how about its smaller ‘M40′ series models of 60 to 95hp? James de Havilland reports
Almost inevitably it’s a tractor manufacturer’s flagship product that attracts most observer attention. Yet such headlineappeal, just as inevitably, does not always translate into this single modelbringing in the most business. The 95hp Kubota M9540 unit could be a case in point. Even though we opted to feature the Japanese maker’s 128hp M128X in our tractor test, it is the smaller M9540 model that is likely to appeal more to the mass market and, as a result, will ultimately do more to put this relative tractor-building newcomer on the global ag sales map.
Topping off the ‘M40’ series, the M9540 model shares its basics with the 60, 70 and 85hp M6040, M7040 and M8040. A key separation, spec-wise, between the 80 and 95hp tractors is the transmission. The 60 and 70hp models have a 15F/15R speed hydraulic shuttle ‘box as standard, while the larger tractors hike the number of available ratios to 32F/32R with a Dual Speed half gear splitter. The M6040 can also be specced without the air-conditioned cab that is standard on other M40 tractors, a nod perhaps to these models’ likely appeal to non-ag users.
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