When AGCO launched its Ideal combine under green Fendt and red Massey Ferguson brands, the most distinctive exterior features were the sharp styling and, particularly striking, a shared black livery. Yet,
underneath, the departure from what the company had done before was equally as radical. Last summer we tried out an 9T.

There are both diehard Fendt fans and diehard Massey Ferguson fans. When AGCO developed its all-new flagship clean-sheet combine range back in 2017, one of the biggest talking points was a single black livery for the two brands, with just a set of decal changes depending on a buyer’s preference and dealer focus. Taking this into account, here we’ll refer to the range simply as the ‘AGCO’ Ideal.

A fully modular line, the Ideal family initially comprised four models. The smallest offering, the Ideal 7, uses a single rotor for threshing and separation, whereas the larger Ideal 8/9 machines boast a double rotor and differ in engine power and in cleaning and separation area size. Latterly, AGCO introduced a further 10T twin-rotor model to the Ideal range, with even more horsepower and the option of the IdealDrive joystick steering system, but this is available only as a Fendt machine — and only with front tracks. All are available with wheels or AGCO’s TrakRide track system up front, the latter denoted by a ‘T’ suffix, and our test machine was an Ideal 9T.

Spoiled for header selection
The farm where we tested our machine runs two Ideal combines — an Ideal 9T with the 10.70m or 35’ Truflex draper header from Geringhoff, and a second Ideal 8T model with a 10.70m AGCO Powerflow header. We plan to discuss the header options in greater detail in a future issue, but worthy of note here is
that the header trailer supplied for our test conducted in Germany was a TAM Leguan 35, with four-wheel braking, additional Ackermann steering at the rear and a practical locking system that secures the header on the trailer, all scoring excellent marks

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