Tractor test: Fendt 312 Vario … which has so wholeheartedly embraced continuously variable transmission technology that all bar its little 200-series tractors are now sold as stepless models. At the bottom end of the hp scale, the 300 tractor range is the latest Fendt product to adopt CVT-style operation, and here we test the line’s tidily packaged flagship – the 81kW/110hp rated (ECE R24) 312 Vario unit.
Even though the Fendt 300 series has traditionally sold by the bucketful in the company’s native Germany, this degree of popularity has never quite transferred itself across the Channel to the UK.
There’s an extremely simple reason for this trend. And – surprise, surprise – that reason is ‘price’. For although the Fendt brand has long enjoyed a reputation for residing at the upper end of the price tag spectrum, it’s reasonable to suggest that these premium green products become more competitive the higher up the hp scale the potential purchaser scans. Over the past five or so years, the 180hp 818 and 300hp 930 have been the marque’s top UK sellers, and today it remains a similar story with the current 190hp 820 and 330hp 936 models again heading up the Fendt sales charts.
So, where does that leave the little 300? The reality is that in the semi-powershift format there is so much competition in the 100hp sector that the conventional Fendt offering, the 300 Ci, tends to get lost within the collective crowd. Yet with the addition of the Vario gearbox, the brand once again sets itself apart in this tractor class – hence our test here on the 81kW/110hp rated (ECE R24) 312 model, which is reckoned to top out at a 92kW/125hp maximum. Transmission in question is the Vario ML75 unit.
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