Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, Germany

Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, Germany

The beginnings of production of agricultural machinery in the Deutz company hail back to the 1864, when this firm was making stable gasoline-powered engines. In 1902, it was awarded by the German Agricultural Society for designing an ethanol-powered locomotive. In Germany, the company made the first self-propelling towing machines in 1905 but by that time, Deutz’s daughter company in the United States has been developing the Otto gas engine for eleven years. A tangible success came in 1907, when Deutz’s German factory made an automotive 25hp plough and, based on Brey and Heyer’s design, also a plough locomotive with output of 40hp. But further development of these machines did not continue and during the First World War, the company used its prewar experience to make prime movers (tractors) for military use.

In 1921, the company introduced the Motor Trekker with a 40hp and later also 33hp gasoline engine, which found use in agriculture, forestry, and later also as a universal vehicle. In 1924, the Deutz company started building a stable diesel engine that was attached to a carriage; this was produced since 1926 serially as MHT 222. For the most part, however, it served just as a mobile engine to power other agricultural machines. Better equipped for field work was the MTZ 220 made since 1928/1929. It had a two-cylinder engine, which the company continued to make until 1936. Already in 1930, the Deutz company changed its name to Humboldt-Deutz Motoren Aktiengesellschaft. In 1933, it introduced a new type called F2M 315 with a two-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine with 35 and 50hp. In 1936, the company started the serial production of the F1M 414 tractor, the most popular of Deutz’s designs, which came to be known as the ‘farmer’s tractor’.  

In 1938, the company changed its name again, this time to Klockner-Humboldt-Deutz AG. During the war, the KHD developed two wood gas-powered tractors: one 47hp road tractor and one universal 25hp tractor. Aside from this, it was also refitting tractors made by Deuliewag, Fahr, Kramer, Fendt, Stock companies. At the end of the war, three-quarters of the company’s factories as well as its Vienna branch were destroyed. In 1946, the company started making pre-war tractor models from spare parts. In 1947, The Austrian factory, which came under Soviet administration, started to make Typ J 120 with one-cylinder two-stroke 50hp diesel engine, which was exported to the Soviet Union. To differentiate itself from its mother company, the Austrian branch used the name Klokner-Humboldt-Deutz-Wien. It was making Deutz-Wien Farmer tractors, which had been designed by the Viennese constructor F. Jandik. 

In 1954, the Austrian Deutz was sold to the HMW and its tractors were henceforth sold under the brand of HMW Farmer. Serial production of a new type of tractor designated as F2L 514 started in the German factory in 1950. In the 1950s, the company developed a number of new types of tractors with water-cooled engines and various technical improvements, including two caterpillar tractors.

By mid-1950s, the KDH already made 100,000 tractors, but its production plan was based on a single type series, which was potentially dangerous. That is why in 1959 it introduced a fully new tractor series, which was based on types D 15, D 25, and D 40; these were in 1963 joined by D 80 and D 75, which featured a six-cylinder diesel engine. In 1959–1961, the company had built in Kalk (a suburb of Cologne) a new factory capable of producing 30,000 tractors a year and in the following year, the company delivered its 250,000th tractor.

At that time, the KHD was active also in a number of competing tractor-making companies. In 1968, the company started making a newly designed tractor series 05 with a new image and diesel engines with direct injection. In 1970, it introduced a fully new tractor D 16 006 Ackergigant, which was equipped with an eight-cylinder engine. Two years later, it introduced the Intrac 2002 tractor. It had many innovations but farmers, being of a rather conservative nature, did not find it attractive, and the KHD returned to its traditional production plan. In 1978, it introduced a new DX series with five models of 80 to 150hp and five– and six–cylinder engines.

From the second half of the 1980s, the KHD also makes tractors with turbocharged engines. In 1985, the KHD took over the production of American Allis-Chalmers tractors, which it makes under the label of Deutz-Allis. Nowadays, the KHD has business representation in thirty countries all over the world.