The McCormick XTX 200 is one of the tractors of the XTX series built by McCormick Tractors International, the company the Italian ARGO group created in 2000 around the old Case IH works at Doncaster. The series has a place in the history of the plant: the last tractor to leave Doncaster, on 14 December 2007, was an XTX.
McCormick XTX 200 at a glance
| Brand | McCormick |
|---|---|
| Maker | McCormick Tractors International Ltd., ARGO group |
| Series | XTX |
| Built at | Doncaster, England (until December 2007) |
| Later production | Fabbrico, Italy |
| Company formed | 2000–2001 from Case IH assets |
| Closure announced | December 2006, about 325 jobs |
| Last Doncaster tractor | an XTX, 14 December 2007 |
| Assembly line sold to | KamAZ, for a Russian-built XTX version |
There is no Wikipedia article on the XTX 200, so this page is based on the article about McCormick Tractors and follows the series through the history of the company and the Doncaster plant.
History of the McCormick XTX 200
McCormick Tractors International was formed in 2000, when Case IH had to sell assets to win European Union approval for its merger with New Holland. The Italian ARGO group bought the Case IH tractor plant at Doncaster in England, the rights to the C, CX and MX-C models and a licence to build the MX Maxxum tractors. The tractors took their name from the McCormick family of Chicago and Virginia, whose reaper business had been one of the founders of International Harvester in 1902.
The Doncaster works had a long history of building tractors for International Harvester and then Case IH, and under its new owner it carried on building tractors for Case IH as well, under the terms of the European antitrust agreement. In June 2001 McCormick bought the rights to the MX transmission and the Saint-Dizier factory in France, a site that had made McCormick power train components in the 1950s. In December 2001 the company announced McCormick International USA, based near Vermeer in Pella, Iowa.
In December 2006 ARGO announced that the Doncaster plant would close, with the loss of about 325 jobs, a week before Christmas. Production moved in 2007 to Fabbrico in Italy, the former main Landini factory, where the group has since built a common line of tractors for the Landini and McCormick brands. The last tractor rolled off the Doncaster assembly line on 14 December 2007, an XTX series tractor. KamAZ bought and transferred the assembly line to Russia to build a version of the XTX there.
The company then became a brand rather than a manufacturer: McCormick Tractors International was a subsidiary of ARGO until production moved to ARGO Tractors in Italy. The Saint-Dizier plant was sold to the Chinese firm YTO in 2011 and transmission production moved to Italy, and in 2017 sales, service and marketing for Great Britain and Ireland passed to an independent distributor. McCormick tractors are still sold, and the German article on the brand notes the X6.4 VT-Drive being named Tractor of the Year in the Best Utility 2018 category, the X7.6 VT-Drive of 2019 and the 301 hp X8.680 VT-Drive as the most powerful model offered in Europe.
Design and features
- XTX series: the heavy range of the McCormick line, built at Doncaster until the plant closed.
- Last of Doncaster: an XTX was the final tractor assembled there, on 14 December 2007.
- Built on Case IH ground: the plant had made tractors for International Harvester and Case IH before McCormick.
- Russian successor: KamAZ took the Doncaster assembly line to build a version of the XTX in Russia.
McCormick XTX 200 versions
- XTX series at Doncaster: the range that ended production in December 2007.
- XTX 200: the version of the series this page is about.
- KamAZ-assembled XTX: a Russian version built on the transferred Doncaster line.
- Later McCormick ranges: the X6.4 VT-Drive, X7.6 VT-Drive and X8.680 VT-Drive sold after production moved to Italy.
The company behind the XTX is described on the page for McCormick International, and its smaller C-series tractors on the page for the McCormick C95. More machines are in the McCormick collection.
Video: Mc CORMICK xtx 200
Video by marco sobra on YouTube.
Sources
- McCormick Tractors, English Wikipedia: company history, Doncaster closure, last XTX, KamAZ
- McCormick Tractors International, German Wikipedia: later ranges and Tractor of the Year
