RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 19, 2019
42 MACHINERY & PRODUCTS
Power Farming’s Geoff Maber and Morrinsville dealer Richard Clark at the opening of the new facility.
Built for today and tomorrow MARK DANIEL markd@ruralnews.co.nz
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A NEW chapter was recently written in the story of the Waikato farm machinery business Maber Motors, founded by Laurie Maber in 1946. Now it’s rebranded and operating as Power Farming Morrinsville, a joint venture of Power Farming Wholesale and a well-known local, Richard Clarke, of the rugby dynasty. The company recently welcomed 500 guests to the opening of new premises, an event dubbed ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’. Over 12 months the business demolished its existing building and sub-
stituted a high-stud building with 2500sq.m of floor space. The entrance area has a large showroom, parts and office space amounting to 1000sq.m. The heart of the building is a 1300sq.m workshop with 18 service bays and a 5-tonne gantry crane. The project cost $4 million, all built and fitted out by local tradies. Power Farming managing director Geoff Maber noted that the company had come a long way “since Laurie Maber started all those years ago in a small wooden shed, selling his first tractor -- a grey Fergie for 475 pounds”. Maber said the investment puts the company
in the right place to support present and future customers. “There will always be a place for farmers who will produce food to feed the world’s growing population,” he said. The dealer principal at Power Farming Morrinsville, Richard Clarke, said they needed to update. “We have to improve and invest in offering a better service for our customers of today and the future,” he told Rural News. “Without customers we have no business. This new building is our commitment to those customers, our 21 staff and the town of Morrinsville.” @rural_news facebook.com/ruralnews
MANCEL COMING NOT OFTEN is a tractor brand ‘born’, but that will happen next week (Feb 24-28) at the SIMA 19 Exhibition in Paris. Chinese company YTO, formed in 1955 and reckoned the largest maker of tractors there, will use its French subsidiary YTO France SAS to launch a new brand named Mancel. Saying it wanted to make a ‘European’ tractor, YTO in 2011 bought the St Dizier plant in France from Argo Tractors. That plant was founded in 1949 by the International Harvester Co which built tractors there. In its heyday, in the early 1980s, 5000 people worked there; then it switched to making transmissions under the Case IH umbrella. Argo took it over in 2001 as a result of the CNH merger and a ‘sell-it’ order
from the European Monopolies Commission. Since its buy-out by YTO -- a part of the giant Sinomach conglomerate -the plant is reported to have had €60 million spent on it. The new Mancel tractors are expected to be sold from early 2020 and will have 80% European components. Four models will be powered by a Stage V engine with a range of 110 to 145hp. Two smaller ranges are said to be on the drawing board, with outputs of 50 to 75hp and 85 to 105hp respectively. In China the company is field-testing a new 300 - 400hp motor, giving it product offerings from 15 - 400hp. – Mark Daniel