Take in European Tractor Shows

Farm Collector makes it easy to get started with a collection of 100 representative videos of shows from 24 European countries (European Tractor Shows from your Armchair). The videos range from strictly homemade to quite professional, but even those filmed using a cell phone can show rare tractors in picturesque settings. Once you’ve sampled a few, you may want to dig deeper.

A few tips – like searching using the local language – will deliver the best results. Search for “Czech tractor shows,” for instance, and you’ll get some listings. Search for “Traktoriada,” and you’ll get a lot more.

At the end of this article, a handy list of terms will yield hours of viewing fun. To identify show locations (which often are in remote areas), keep Google Maps open while watching videos.

Experience a different culture in a new way

Americans are prone to thinking of Europe as crowded and urbanized, but there’s still plenty of farm country, even in small nations like Austria and Belgium. Farming means tractors, and old tractors mean tractor shows.

France has the diagonal du vide (or empty diagonal) running across the country roughly southwest to northeast. This area’s population density is similar to that of Minnesota. Germany has pretty farmland near industrial cities like Dusseldorf and Munich, and vast swaths of Spain are almost uninhabited.

European rural life is much more village-based than ours. Historically, farmers there lived in town and commuted to their fields. German tractors, accordingly, often featured high road gears and flat fenders with wire seats for passengers.

Exhibitors today honor that tradition by driving to shows on a tractor. Since pickup trucks are less common in Europe than in the U.S., showgoers often use tractors to tow small camping trailers or larger rigs that resemble old-fashioned gypsy wagons or small railcars.

The shows themselves look familiar, with static displays, demonstrations, competitions and lots of food. But each nation puts its own stamp on the festivities.

British Tractor Shows

England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales have a rich tractor tradition, and names like Harry Ferguson and David Brown are part of our history, too.

Where the British truly excel is in the preservation of steam power. In the states, steam engines are associated with the breaking of virgin land in the northern plains. In Great Britain, steamers had many applications, with the most colorful being their use as motive power for traveling shows.

As a result, British steam engines are gleaming showpieces with shiny paint and stylish lettering. They are often driven to shows under their own power, pulling water wagons and camping trailers in slow-moving road trains that doubtless infuriate drivers behind them.

Czech and French Tractor Shows

Czech tractor shows have the usual static displays and parades, but what the Czechs really like is competition. Tractor drag races, hill climbs and mud bog racing are all avidly pursued. The Czech-made Zetor tractor shines in most of these events, but the locals also enjoy purpose-built buggies that would not be out of place in Alabama or Florida.

French terrain and crops are varied and that means great diversity in tractors, with manufacturers like Someca, Vierzon and Vendeuvre challenged by International Harvester, Massey-Ferguson, Nuffield and many of the German brands.

What an American viewer immediately notices about French tractor shows are the regional costumes, especially among the women, and the cuisine, which, as you might expect, looks a lot more delectable than the brats and soft drinks we are accustomed to.

Local wines are featured at sit-down meals held at long tables under tents, often featuring crepes homemade onsite. This is something we probably should copy from our Gallic friends. The feast is often accompanied by music from an ensemble (including an accordion) and no parade is complete without tunes offered by a local marching band.

German Tractor Shows

Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe, and so it is with tractoring. There have been dozens of German tractor brands, some of which are very much alive today, but none of them means more than Lanz, builder of the immortal Lanz Bulldog. The Bulldog is to Germany what the John Deere A or Farmall M are to us.

All Bulldogs use a one-cylinder diesel engine. The classic configuration features hot bulb ignition. A steel bulb at the bottom front of the engine is heated for several minutes by a supplied blowtorch that has its own cubby in front of the steering wheel. Modern users often use a torch fed by a barbecue propane tank.

This process can be impressively easy or comically tough. When it’s the latter, a crowd assembles immediately. Inevitably, an expert in his 80s is summoned. He makes a couple minor adjustments that lead instantly to ignition, with applause all around. No German tractor video is complete without this little scene.

Our German counterparts also bundle up to hold tractor shows outdoors in the winter. That will be a revelation to anyone who’s run similar events in this country, where a “no-rain” dance is performed before every show.

In Germany, the phrase “Oldtimers” describes all things vintage

The German term “Oldtimer,” common throughout Europe, includes cars, trucks, military vehicles, motorcycles and stationary engines – and those collectors mix freely with tractor fans.

German showgoers enjoy American-style tractor pulls (with the added spice of using surplus Russian tank and aircraft engines) but also favor home-grown displays of motive power (like dragging huge logs and sewer standpipes around a circle track). This sometimes is done by using towbars to hook together multiple Bulldogs, producing impressive amounts of noise and exhaust.

The contrast between shows in prosperous regions like Bavaria and those citizens of the former East Germany is readily apparent. The Ossis (former citizens of East Germany) preserve East German artifacts like Fortschritt tractors, IFV trucks and Trabant autos alongside the more conventional German lines.

The king of German tractoring videos is Hochkelberg TV, which covers multiple big shows in Germany and surrounding countries. If you’re looking for a starting place to see European shows, that’s it.

Italian Tractor Shows

Italian shows are generally held in town. Tractors are parked around a central piazza, bringing the show to the spectators and the exhibitors to the food and drink.

What Lanz is to Germans, Landini is to Italians. The hot-bulb ignition style is also the same.

The difference, of course, is that when the Italians do it, there’s lots of hand-waving and impassioned debate over the proper valve settings. As at German shows, a white-haired elder is invariably summoned to get the relic running.

Once the Landinis are fired up, the Italians love a good plowing bee, where they use very large single-bottom moldboard plows. This is inevitably accomplished with wheelies and clouds of black smoke. Night plowing is popular, complete with impressive bursts of flame spouting from the one-cylinder diesels.

Fiat is a dominant tractor brand in Italy and other parts of Europe. Lamborghini tractors, on the other hand, carry huge cachet in the U.S. thanks to the famous sports cars, but are just tractors to Italians. Regardless what they are driving (and their one speed seems to be fast), Italians like to go in style, and are definitely the snappiest dressers at any tractor show.

The Low Countries

Until they faced down and defeated their own government, which was intent on putting them out of business and seizing their land, Dutch farmers were some of the most productive and highly capitalized in the world. They use some of the most specialized high-tech machinery on the planet, which you can see by going to YouTube and searching for Tractorspotter.

They also host some of the biggest tractor shows in Europe, displaying a sophisticated mix of European and American brands. Avid collectors there like to show classic American makes like Aultman-Taylor, Emerson-Brantingham and Rumely.

Ford built tractors in Belgium for many years, and Massey Ferguson continues to make them in Beauvais, France, but British brands like David Brown and Nuffield have found favor with Benelux farmers, too.

Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Portugal and Spain Tractor Shows

Can you go wrong with tractors and fabulous scenery? No. If you can imagine tractors driving through the kind of scenery shown in The Sound of Music, you’ll have an idea about what shows in the Alpine countries look like.

Austria’s Steyr and Swiss manufacturer Hürlimann are both active to this day, with exports well beyond the tight borders of their home countries. Tractor drives through mountain meadows get plenty of participants, but tractor fans in this region have to be prepared for any weather, and are prepared to forge ahead in full rain gear if need be.

The Iberian nations were somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe during the Franco and Salazar dictatorships, but German makers Hanomag and Lanz built tractors in Spain, as did International Harvester under the name SACA. Portugal is a relatively poor corner of Europe, so the more-economical Indian tractors are popular there, along with Fiat and Massey Ferguson.

Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia Tractor Shows

Dutra tractors were built in Hungary from 1957-’75. With their nose-heavy engine placement before the front axle, they’re easy to spot. Hungarian farmers also favored tractors from neighboring Belarus during the Warsaw Pact era.

In Poland, conventional tractor pulls are complemented by a local variant where competitors are linked by a cable that passes through a snatch block attached to a larger ballast tractor.

When the flag drops, drivers hit the throttle, which both pulls the ballast tractor forward and the weaker of the rival tractors backward. Keeping the pedal down and the wheels grabbing is essential. Otherwise, you may find yourself snatched into second place.

Romania suffered even more under Communism than most East European nations. One of the few bright spots of the Romanian economy during that time was Uzina Tractorul Brasov, maker of Universal tractors. These were based on Fiat designs, and Allis-Chalmers fans will remember that the Allis 5040 was imported from Universal.

Universal tractors remain dominant at Romanian tractor shows, and that’s a tribute to their durability, because these gatherings seem to include a lot of rough tractor games.

Scandinavian Tractor Shows

Despite its tiny land area and a population of just 5.8 million, Denmark boasts a history of tractor manufacture in the form of Bukh, an engine maker that produced tractors from 1947-’68.

These are apparently fairly durable, because Danes are still parading and plowing with them, but the Bukh is perhaps the most nondescript-looking tractor imaginable. If it’s red and you’re scratching your head, it may be a Bukh.

Finland may have the most varied tractor fleet in Europe. Local maker Valmet (later Valtra) retains a strong hold on the Finnish market, but Ford was a big brand there, as was Czech maker Zetor. There are plenty of Fiats, Nuffields and Renaults, too.

Kharkiv was a name few of us knew before Russia invaded Ukraine, but tractors made in that city are popular in Finland, and identified with the symbol XT3, with the 3 being the Cyrillic equivalent of the letter Z.

Like Finland, Norway has a widely varied selection of European and even American tractors. Logging is an important part of that country’s tractor history.

Swedish tractor show activities include speed plowing – essentially a drag race between tractors fitted with multi-bottom plows. The most important part is not the straightness of the furrows, but rather who gets to the other end first.

The importance of preserving traditions

Just as we try to hang onto our history and traditions by preserving the tools and techniques used by our forebears, our counterparts in Europe try to conserve what they have in an era when globalism sometimes threatens to blend the unique into the familiar.

Preserving the essence of what makes a country unique takes time and energy, and if it’s to be done, must be done by a lot of people working together. Watch European tractor shows and you’ll see people who, like you, believe in family, faith, hard work and patriotism. It’s good to see those qualities remain universal, even if the flags, the food and the language are different.

Learn the lingo

Get the best results when you use the right language.

When searching for European tractor show videos, you can search YouTube using English terms like “Tractor show, Luxembourg,” but you’ll get better results faster by using the appropriate language. Here are a few handy words and phrases:

• Czech Tractor show: Traktoriada.
• Dutch Threshing festival: Flaeilfeeste.
• Finnish
  • Tractor parade: Traktoriparaati;
  • Tractor show: Traktorinäyttely;
  • Veteran machine days: Weteraanikonepaivat.
• French
  • Tractor ride: Balade de tracteur;
  • Antique tractor parade: Defile des
    tracteurs anciens;
  • Threshing festival: Fête des battages;
  • Harvest festival: Fête des moissons.
• German
  • Tractor, car, motorcycle meeting: Oldtimertreffen;
  • Tractor meeting: Traktortreffen, Schleppertreffen or Treckertreffen.
• Hungarian Tractor show: Traktorshow.
• Italian
  • Tractor show: Salone dei trattori;
  • Tractor parade: Parata di trattoria or Sfilata di trattori;
  • Vintage tractors: Trattori d’epoca.
• Polish
  • Harvest festival: Dożynki;
  • Antique tractor parade: Parada starych traktorów.
• Spanish Tractor parade: Desfile de tractores.

Bob Hunnicutt is a retired magazine publisher who lives in Washington, Illinois. His only European tractor is a British Leyland 154, but he has the bug to get some more. Email him at Bob.Hunnicutt@OutdoorSG.com.