James Lynch recorded his neighbour Tom Fitzmaurice harvesting silage with these rare tractors, in Ballyroe near Tralee Co Kerry using a drone. The two tractors in the video were made in 1985 and 1987.

At just 14 years of age this is Jame's first video on YouTube. His father bought him the drone for his birthday a few months ago and he decided to practise using it by doing some silage videos.

In its first week the video has got 2,978 views and James plans on doing more on planting and harvesting. He said “I thought it would be nice to film my neighbour, Thomas Fitzmaurice, cutting silage with his vintage Mercedes tractors because they are so unusual.”

Mercedes Benz MB-trac history in Ireland

The Mercedes Benz MB-trac tractors are relatively rare in Ireland. Very few were sold new over the years when Motor Distributors on Dublin’s Naas Road were the Irish importers of the all-wheel drive tractors.

The MB-trac range was built on the success of the Mercedes Benz Unimog chassis which was like a small four-wheel-drive truck that was fitted with a front and rear PTO drive and three point linkage. These tractors were produced before the arrival of the JCB Fastrac, which many might consider to have been modelled on a mix of the MB-Trac and Trantor tractor design and came to the market later.

The first models were the MB-trac 65 and 70 and they were joined by the larger MB-trac 1500. The most powerful tractor in the range was the MB-trac 1800, which was introduced shortly before production ceased.

The MB-tracs were different to the Unimogs and to other existing tractors at the time and were seen to more tractors, with a centre position cab and a platform to the rear designed to carry a sprayer or fertilizer spreader. The design was built around a ladder type chassis as in a truck with tubular cross members for extra strength. The design allowed the cab to be positioned in the centre, where there would be the minimum of vibration. The cabs came with a passenger seat, which was relatively rare at the time.

The MB-trac tractors were manufactured from 1973 to 1991, when production ceased. Irish imports of the tractors started in the early 1980’s and few were sold due to their very high prices.

For the early years on the Irish market, they were demonstrated around the country in a high-power operation by Motor Distributors. There were three Irish retailers for the tractors in the 1980’s, Motor Distributors themselves from Dublin, Surehaul in Clonmel and TS Hughes in Rathmoylan, Co Meath.

The fact that the larger 1300 models and upwards has a reverse driving facility meant that some considered them to be competition for the self-propelled silage harvester when fitted with a reverse drive version of a trailed harvester.

The MB-trac range was reasonably successful on the German market, though it did not meet the high expectations Mercedes-Benz had set on it. Daimler-Benz later merged the MB-trac with the agricultural machinery activities of Deutz-Fahr in an attempt to merge the design of the MB-trac with that of the Deutz Intrac, another systems type tractor.

Company reports show that 41,000 MB-trac tractors were produced and it is believed that some 30,000 of which are still in service today. We estimate that there are close to 150 Mercedes Benz MB-trac tractors still in use in Ireland today, most of which were imported as secondhand models. We know that two MB-trac tractors were imported as used tractors in 2014, while there were 8 imported in 2013.