Zetor

When I was in the Czech Republic, I saw three tractors.  All of them were red and all of them had the same manufactures name which I did not recognize (and I didn't get any good pictures because I saw most of them while I was riding the train through the middle of the Czech country side) but, in the interest of nephews, I thought I would do a little research.  (I feel a real need to introduce you guys to a world outside of John Deere.)  I am happy to say that all of the tractors I saw were national products.

Zetor is a Czech company which has been making tractors for sixty some years.  Apparently they are fairly popular because I found auction sites selling used Zetor tractors for between $7,000 and $18,000 in the UK (and the Zetor website is available in English or Czech).  They have distributors on five continents (nothing in Asia or Antarctica) and their only US distributor is in Pennsylvania.  If you want to read all kinds of stuff about Zetor development--from where they got their name to their gear boxes with "electrohydraulic reverse shifting"--Wikipedia has a pretty detailed article (I think it may have been written by the company) which you can see here.

It looks like there is some popular appeal for the Zetor around Europe, though.  Apparently, in Finland, there is a restaurant that is, literally, built around Zetor tractors.  You can go in and have a drink or eat some supper while sitting at an old Zetor tractor.  If you click on this link, it will take you to the restaurant's website and you can see pictures of the restaurant (just "x" out the little pop-up and use the direction arrows to spin the picture around) or click on the "Kuvagalleria" link on the left, which will bring up a bunch of photos (clicking on the photo will bring up the next picture).  It looks like it would be a pretty interesting place.

  Zetor also has model tractor toys for kids.  This picture comes from a nifty blog called "Swifty's Garage" that is entirely about model cars and other model vehicles (it is actually pretty interesting because there is information about the toy car and the real car with a little social/economic history thrown in).  The Zetor 5511 was the "Tractor of the Week" just about a year ago.

The new tractors have fancy new electronic systems and they advertise themselves as "the first smart tractor".  They say they have an intelligent "hitchtronic" system.  I do not know what that is.  But, if it is what it sounds like--something that hitches the tractor to other equipment--as someone who has spent quite a bit of time pulling on grease collars while trying to get the stupid hydraulic hoses hooked up, I am pretty much in favor.  It looks like they have six or seven models, of varying size and power but not the incredibly massive ones that you see sometimes in the US, probably reflecting the different face of agriculture in Europe.  If you want to see more (and bigger) pictures, this link will take you right to the Zetor home page's image section.