There were more than 90 press conferences at Agritechnica last week, and the most interesting news at many of them came during the Q+A session at the end. Take SDF, for example, which ended with interesting answers to three key questions – 11 Series, future strategy and combines.
First seen as an 11440 TTV prototype at the 2013 Agritechnica, the eagerly-awaited (and long-overdue) tractor has not been seen since. There are two main reasons for this. First, the floor of the company’s previous manufacturing location at Lauingen, in Germany, was not able to support the weight of such a tractor. This is no longer an issue at the recently-opened state-of-the-art facility across the road at Lauingen, which is designed to handle larger tractors, such as the 11 Series.
Second, when SDF first showed the 11 Series prototype, the 440hp flagship was at the time the world’s most powerful conventional tractor. This is no longer the case because Fendt has stepped in and upped the stakes with its 500hp 1000 Series. The official message from SDF is that work continues with the 11 Series project (and with more powerful 9 Series tractors), and you can be sure that when the 11 does finally go into production (we still have no idea when that might be) that the company’s new flagship tractor will be a good deal more powerful than 440hp.
The second key question concerned SDF’s role as a full liner following the ending of the partnership with JLG (telehandlers) and Kverneland (grass kit). According to R+D executive director Massimo Ribaldone, the company considered all the options and concluded it needs to work with all implement manufacturers. “We need to focus on a digital link between our tractors and all brands of implements in the future,” he said. “This is more important than having Deutz-Fahr-branded kit.”
Finally, SDF has not only invested heavily in tractors during the past five years, but also combines, and rather than develop rotary machines to compete with everyone else, the company stresses that the priority is with straw-walker machines. ‘The mid-term priority is to complete the straw-walker range in Europe’ was the message.
