No miracle, granted. Yet Fendt has still managed to conjure something rather special out of its design department’s hat. The firm’s flagship 1050 model boasts a 500hp engine, 14t kerb weight and 2.35m tall wheels, all within a conventionally configured tractor package. Abracadabra … and then some
Back in August we hooked up a 7.0m Amazone Cenius 7003-2TX Super cultivator to the rear of a 1050 Vario — for a tillage romp across some of the 5,000ha of land farmed by a large German agribusiness. The conditions? Not too bad, as around 120mm of rain had softened up the wheat stubbles the day before. A decent test, then, to see whether a conventionally configured tractor really is capable of effectively utilising as much as 500hp. First, though, a look at the hardware that makes up the 1050.
Underneath that prominent green bonnet lurks the six-cylinder, 12.4-litre MAN D2676 LE521 powerplant, together with a variable turbocharger and what the tractor maker terms its Fendt iD high torque/low speed concept. In capacity and in-built technology the monster MAN motor represents a massive step up from the 7.8-litre Deutz engine that powers the tractor maker’s smaller 900 Vario models. So, what of Fendt iD? The basic idea is to max out the 1050 Vario’s engine at its most economical speed. With this in mind the rated speed is pegged at a modest 1,700rpm — in comparison, the 900 Vario rated figure is a lofty 2,100rpm — while the maximum torque, an eye-watering 2,400Nm, is generated between 1,100rpm and 1,500rpm.
As mentioned the ultimate goal is fuel saving — in relative terms, the 1050 is reckoned to be 10% more fuel efficient than the 900 Vario — and, to this end, the firm has also revised the new tractor’s pto speed ratios: the 1,000rpm pto setting delivers its target shaft speed at 1,630 engine revs, whereas the 1,000E setting trims that speed back even further, to just 1,275rpm.
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