John Deere’s plant at Mannheim in Germany has produced its two-millionth tractor. About 3,300 employees help produce 40,000 tractors each year at the site, before the machines are exported across the globe.
The Heinrich Lanz company laid the foundation stone at the Mannheim site 102 years ago when it started building its Bulldog tractor; the John Deere brand has been produced there since 1956.
Due to a sharp increase in production, the factory is now the largest John Deere production facility outside North America. It’s also the largest tractor production facility in Germany, as two-thirds of all the tractors manufactured in the country are produced in Mannheim. The factory benefits from its convenient location on the Rhine, via which about 250 tractors are shipped twice a week to Rotterdam or Antwerp, and then exported overseas.
For more than 20 years, John Deere has been the market leader for tractors in all major Western European countries. The brand’s current success is due, among other things, to the flagship of Mannheim production, the 6R250. With a maximum output of 300hp, it’s the largest tractor ever built on the site. Overall, the plant’s tractors cover the range from 90hp to 250hp rated power in the ‘luxury’ class.
Appropriately, the two-millionth tractor was a 6R250, and as a thank you to the production team, the tractor is wrapped in portrait photos of more than 300 employees. It was unveiled at the Mannheim plant on March 22, 2023 in the presence of John Deere’s CEO, John C May.
The tractor will take its place in the factory museum next to its little brother, the one-millionth tractor, a JD 6400, that was built 30 years earlier.
