Claas is celebrating a major milestone in its combine harvester history, with half a million machines now built since the first Claas MDB combine was manufactured in 1936.

This was followed in 1953 by the Hercules/SF which was the first European-built self-propelled combine.

Since then, Claas has not only focused on combine mechanics but significantly in the development of its operator assistance systems such as yield mapping, first introduced in the 1990s, telematics in 2005 and Cemos machine intelligence in 2013.

Manufacturing

Today, Claas manufactures a vast array of combines, ranging from a 205hp five-walker Evion model right up to its 790hp Lexion 8900 Terra Trac model.

With around 100,000 and more than 75,000 units, respectively, Dominator and Lexion models account for the largest share of the 500,000 combines built to date.

Several anniversary machines have been and are being built with a special look and will be on display at various national and international trade fairs, field days and demos.

These machines will feature a special paint finish and extensive metallic silver decals to represent the well-known colour scheme introduced with the Senator models in 1966.

A knotting pattern within the Claas letters on both sides of these anniversary machines references the old-shape logo with the Claas knotter hook.