Driving impression: Claas Cougar self-propelled mower Quite a bite Put on show for the first time at Agritechnica 2003 the 14m wide Claas Cougar self-propelled mower boasts potential crop downing outputs of around 120ha/day. At the tail end of last season we had the opportunity to climb aboard the first prototype
With its broad, toothy grin, there can be few machines more aptly tagged than the ferociously feline Claas Cougar.
Clearly there is still further work to do on the pictured 14m prototype, yet Claas has put down its massive mower marker. The company says this is the direction in which the top end market is heading – hence its considerable investment in a self propelled mower project that has been jointly developed by three of the firm’s divisions: Claas Saulgau (mowers and folding mechanisms), Claas Special Products (base units transmissions) and, last, Claas SP harvesting units (auxiliary hydraulic systems, electronic systems).
The project start point: For a self drive mowing unit to make sense, Claas reckoned that the machine had to have enough capacity to cut substantially more grass than the largest tractor-driven unit, whether that tractor-based configuration be mounted, trailed, or a combination of the two.
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