The Trantor tractor is a high-speed transport tractor built in Lancashire, England. Stuart Taylor (a research student at Manchester University) and Graham Edwards are the originators of the design, and Trantor tractors were subsequently built from 1978 until 1987 in Lancashire (Series I) and Cheshire (Series II).
The idea was to create a new concept of tractor for on-farm transport duties, with low-draught focused specification, which was much more efficient (faster) and with much reduced fuel consumption than conventional tractors and also one that could be useful to most, if not all power take-off (PTO) work tasks.
Timeline
- 1972 – Initial concept revealed in a University (Manchester) thesis by Stuart Taylor.
- 1973 – Prototype built in ten shillings a week garage in Withington, Manchester, UK.
- 1976 – Launched at the Royal Show, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, UK
- 1978 – First models sold into Scotland with help from James Anderson. (Sandy Dawson the first UK owner of a Series I Trantor).
- 1979 Licence agreement signed with EVA industries.
- 1980 EVA lunch Series 1 at Blenheim Palace
- 1982 EVA production ceased
- 1983 – Series II introduced at 72HP, 96HP and 128HP in 2WDrive.
- 1986 – 5-off, 4WDrive Series II Trantors built in Sandbach (ex-Foden truck factory).
- 1987 – UK production ceased when many of the UK’s automotive component suppliers went out of business in The Midlands.
- 1991 – design and development work for use in all or most countries of the world has since been undertaken in the UK, and new product development is a continuous activity.
- 1999 – work conducted with Gajra gears of Dewas, MP enabled the company to create its Indian supply chain and one what began with TATA components originally designed by Mercedes-Benz. 3 prototypes were built.
- 2004 – HMT – agreement to build 10 x pre-production 65HP examples with assistance from the UK design team.
- Stuart Taylor’s Transport study
The design was conceived by Stuart Taylor and Graham Edwards, who formed a firm to develop the idea in 1973. The name was derived from the original title of TRANsport TracTOR, which became Trantor.
- Early testing at Silsoe
- Lonrho McConnell prototypes
A prototype was built in 1973, which was bought by Tiny Rowland’s company Lonrho and went to Nigeria. Lonrho then purchased the next 20 revised prototypes and sold them (as Trantor’s African Licensee) to South Africa, Zambia, Nigeriaand Malaysia for evaluation and use by farmers, co-operatives and public authorities. McConnel of Ludlow, Shropsire helped build a few Trantors for Stuart Taylor, before EVA Industries Plc. purchased the UK rights for the Series I Trantor tractors and set up assembly in Belle-Vue, Manchester.
- Eva industries Series 1
- Renold FWD
- Combat Sprayer
- US California Tractor Race
- Series 2 Mark 1 Sandbach
The Trantor Series II was introduced to address some of the issues of customer use and manufacturing systems that were found with the early machines. Options of alternative engines from 72HP to 128HP were produced at Sandbach. The Trantors were 2 and 4WDrive and fitted with an air-over hydraulic-braking system, which allowed the operation of high-speed trailers on the highway at the legal UK speed of 50MPH (80KPH).
- Trukspec Trailers
- HMT India
By 2004 HMT, had constructed and sold about 400,000 tractors designed by Zetor, and entered into an agreement that enabled them to make only 10 numbers of a 65HP Trantor specification with the assistance of the UK-based Trantor design and manufacturing team. Serious working capital shortages had caused HMT to reduce their volume of tractors from their break-even level of 12,000 per annum, to a level nearer to 4,000 per annum.
The prime reason why the Trantor team was interested in India was because the British supply-chain had to be closed as one automotive supplier after another closed down in the 1985-1995 period. The work in India with Gajra Gears has been very useful to learn about the quality and cost of Indian automotive components. This family firm was as important to the Trantor project as that of Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho, but in a different way. Ramesh Gajra helped our engineers understand the Indian automotive sector and ACMA (Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India) in particular.
When the Trantor design and manufacturing team went to work on building the 10 Trantors at HMT, they had ten years of experience of the Indian automotive sector. India’s variable quality, low costs and the fact that there is a strong determination to be a manufacturing nation, is the reason that Trantor tractors invested so heavily in an Indian auto-component based supply-chain to replace the UK supply chain that had disappeared so quickly between 1987-1990 as the UK automotive industry suffered several high profile collapses. Because Trantor’s key decision-makers were determined to create a farm tractor for worldwide farm efficiency, there were three critical factors.
- Series 2 Mark 2
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- MF Javelin 200hp
The Series III Javelin model of Trantor tractors was developed in order to enter the higher HP farm tractor market & it was designed to be an additional ,higher HP Trantor tractor for those farmers wishing to move away from the older ploughing-based system in to a Zero-Tillage system and in particularly to have a product for the larger acreage farms in Australia,FSU,USA,Canada & Brasil. A wider and more global more global market was in mind. The prototype, will be particularly focused towards those work tasks that ,in zero-tillage, are very much less in variety than that required for farmers using a Plowing-based tillage system.
Trantor Tractor 