The story of Fendt becoming part of AGCO Corporation began 27 years ago when AGCO purchased Fendt and brought the German tractor maker, known for its leadership in technology and workmanship, into the growing AGCO family. Today more than ever, Fendt innovation enables farmers to grow bold, backed by industry-leading service and customer care.
B E G I N N I N G S
While Fendt may be a relatively new name to some in North America, this premier brand has a legacy that reaches back nearly 100 years as a European tractor maker and even further back to the start of the Fendt family business in 1635!
That’s the year master metalworker and clockmaker Sylvester Fendt moved to what was then the village of Oberdorf, Germany, southwest of Munich. Today it is the city of Marktoberdorf, named for the markets held there since the mid-1400s and home to Fendt headquarters and its ultra-modern factory that turns out more than 20,000 tractors a year.
As the Fendt family’s generational business of making locks, clocks for church towers as well as the lead cames (metal strips) used for church windows became vulnerable to changing times in the early 1900s, Johann George Fendt and his sons saw a way to use their skills to maintain, repair and later sell agricultural machinery and stationary engines as farming became mechanized.
While the eldest son, Xaver, started working for engine and vehicle manufacturers, the middle son Hermann, and his father designed and built their first self-propelled mower in 1928 that also could pull other implements. By listening to farmer customer needs—a hallmark of Fendt to this day—they improved the burgeoning tractor and invented a way to attach and pull a plow (not knowing of Irishman Harry Ferguson’s linkage work) with their 6 HP diesel engine.
Dubbed the “Dieselross” (diesel horse, in German) in 1930 by a nearby farmer and tractor tester, the early Fendt tractor was the first of 30 years of increasingly more sophisticated and powerful tractors to carry that name. Among them was the 16 hp Dieselross F 18 of 1937, the first tractor in Europe to have a powershift power takeoff (PTO) solution independent of the transmission. By 1950, Fendt was selling its first 4WD model, the Fendt F 25 A.
In 1955, the best year for the German tractor industry with 99,341 units sold, Fendt celebrated a double milestone: Its 25th year of manufacturing tractors and the
build of the 50,000th Dieselross. The mid-’50s was also when Fendt decided to focus on designing and manufacturing transmissions
in-house while outsourcing engines, unlike the practice of its competitors.
Transmission and Tech Leader
At the end of the 1950s, Hermann Fendt said the transmission was the most important component in a tractor, setting the tone for many Fendt innovations that continue today. In late 1958, Fendt revealed the 40-hp “Favorit,” with a constant mesh transmission that made shifting easier, with nine forward gears, two reverse gears, and five creep gears. The “Tornado-Duplex” dual-clutch was standard and facilitated the use of an independent PTO. Particular attention was paid to the appearance: the design of the engine hood was streamlined, and the headlights were integrated in the radiator grill.
In 1964, Fendt introduced the four-cylinder Farmer 3S, designed to compete in the best-selling 30- to 40-hp category. The 21-ratio transmission, built by Fendt inhouse, was the first model in Fendt’s history equipped with a fluid clutch called Turbomatik. Its performance in Fendt tractors was only surpassed when the Vario transmission was introduced in 1995. With the fluid clutch, the tractor could start and stop moving under load as if the transmission were stepless. The Turbomatik extended the service life of standard clutches and protected the transmission when subjected to abrupt shock loads.
