7 strangest tractors you’ll ever see

Farm tractors have come a long way since their Waterloo Boy days when tractors resemble steam engines more than they do farm equipment.

Since its invention in the early 20th century, the tractor has more or less featured the same design – prime mover chassis with four wheels, an engine, an operator seat and/or cab and drawbar or power take off for implement operation purposes.

Once in a while, and now more often than not, machinery manufacturers or the odd tinkerer like to come up with some out-of-this-world concepts designed more to challenge the thinking of producers rather than turning them into actual working machines.

However, a select few do actually make it past the drawing board only to fizzle out not long after.

Here are just some examples we could find of the strangest tractors you will ever come across in your life.

Fendt is one such ag equipment company that likes to toy around with ambitious concepts and beat others to the post in terms of innovation and automation. It was one of the first companies to float concepts of electric tractors and swarm farms where farmers work with robots to run their operations.

The Fendt Trisix made an appearance at the Agritechnica 2007 trade show in Germany and was hugely impressive and futuristic for its time. It’s essentially a supersized tractor with triple axles and six wheels offering a whopping 540hp of power. It also features two Vario CVT transmissions allowing it to handle the toughest of applications.

To accommodate the three axles and three sets of wheels, the Trisix is nearly 25 feet long and looks like a beast on the farm. However, it never quite made it past the drawing board since its debut almost 14 years ago.

Designed by famous German industrial designer, Luigi Colani, the Eicher Colani tractor has a distinct rounded, organic look which Colani is famous for.

Its egg shaped cartoon-like structure made it look like a vehicle the Jetsons family would operate if they owned a farm.

The funny looking tractor was designed by Colani in the 1990s as a narrow vineyard tractor and is based on Eicher’s 656 VAC narrow gauge model. Colani focuses a lot on aerodynamics with his designs but why a vineyard tractor that usually travels at a snail pace would require aerodynamics is not quite clear.

At a glance, the extremely narrow cab and entryway seem rather uncomfortable and could be a problem for people who suffer from claustrophobia. Also, the lack of rear view mirrors doesn’t quite make this a practical unit for the farm.

Obviously, the model was meant to just be a thought provoking statement piece and not at all designed for use in the real world.

It won’t be quite accurate to brand the Kulan a tractor. It’s more a utility vehicle and tractor hybrid that has been designed for farm work, and is the brainchild of a team of researchers in Germany.

Named after a species of donkey native to central Asia, the Kulan is an electric vehicle with a very futuristic, minimalistic design.

According to a report by the BBC, the Kulan is powered by a pair of 2kW electric motors, which are in turn powered by 16 lithium-ion batteries located beneath the Kulan’s cargo platform.

It is even capable of a top speed of about 50km/h which is more than what most tractors or UTVs nowadays can achieve.

“Our aim is to show what agriculture might look like in 20 years,” Kulan developer Poly-lab.net’s network manager, Marcus Knobloch, told BBC.

Perhaps one of the most impressive concepts of recent times is Case IH’s cabless and autonomous tractor concept released in 2017 to much fanfare.

It even made its way Down Under and turned just about any head that walked past the impressive looking machine at Case IH’s stand at the AgQuip field days.

Case IH came up with the concept mainly to challenge its customers to think about how they will be using their tractors now and into the future, and what they would like to see in a tractor of the future, whether it be autonomy or significantly increased power.

The most striking feature of the concept was perhaps the complete lack of an operator’s cab, which Case IH sees as the future of farming where producers are no longer sitting in the cabs of tractors, but rather controlling them remotely from wherever they are in the world.

This model is the only one on this list which successfully made it into production and on to farms, but despite high expectations, the design and concept fell completely flat with farmers.

The UDLX Comfortractor was certainly ahead of its time when it made its debut in 1938. It is a farm vehicle that blurred the line between a tractor and a truck, with Minneapolis-Moline marketing the vehicle as something farmers can use for both work and play.

The company built the UDLX in response to farmers demanding for enclosed cabs on tractors. In fact, the UDLX is probably the first working farm tractor to feature a cab, which is a common feature of modern tractors. 

The 2.9-tonne UDLX Comfortractor was powered by a Minneapolis-Moline four-cylinder KED petrol engine producing 46hp and features a gearbox with five forward and one reverse gears, giving it a top speed of 40mph (64km/h).

Production of the UDLX ran for about three years before Minneapolis-Moline decided to ditch the model altogether due to poor sales. About 120 models of the UDLX were ever produced.

According to multiple sources, the biggest downfall of the UDLX was its exorbitant price tag, which, at about $2000 back in the 1930s rendered the vehicle completely out of reach for most farmers during that time. In comparison, John Deere tractors and Farmall tractors cost about $1000 back then.

Much like Case IH’s autonomous concept tractor, Kubota’s “X tractor - cross tractor -” concept has no cab, but Kubota took its prototype one step further by adding four tracks to it and making it not just completely autonomous but electric powered as well.

It first surfaced in January 2020 at an exhibition in Kyoto, Japan. It features a streamlined, aerodynamic design with futuristic lights and panels complete with Kubota’s signature orange paint job. At a glance, it almost looks like an oversized mechanical farm dog.

It was introduced by Kubota as a means to address labour shortage issues in the agricultural industry not just in Japan but around the world. But instead of operators pre-programming the tractor to do what they need it to do, this Kubota concept unit is AI operated, which means it is capable of making its own decisions as to what operation to carry out and when based on data such as weather and growth rates.

The data it gathers can then be shared with other machines on the site for a more efficient operation overall. It boggles the mind to think that this could be an actual working machine on a farm not too far in the future!

This is not one you will see on farms and not one meant for farm work like the others on this list but nevertheless, sea tractors are still a unique breed and there aren’t a lot of locations in the world where you will be able to see them nowadays.

Sea tractors are used as a mode of transport to ferry passengers from the beach to their boats or ferries where there are no jetties or piers for boats to dock on.

Back in the 1930s, they were used to give scenic tours to patrons of waterfront hotels and resorts. However, use of sea tractors are not too common nowadays with speedboats and more comfortable modes of transport now readily available.

The only places sea tractors are still in use are in England, more specifically at Burgh Island on the coast of south Devon. The hotel on the island uses a sea tractor to carry visitors and hotel guests to the island at high tide when the causeway connecting the island to the mainland is submerged.

SEE ALSO: Seven tractor concepts of the future

Did we miss any weird and wacky tractors on this list? Have you come across some strange looking ones yourself? Share with us below!