For many of us old enough to remember seeing the earliest Kubota tractors appear on the Canadian landscape, the memories are of very small models that seemed to help create a new tractor market category — one that previously didn’t really exist.
They soon found a loyal following with many people.
“I think we hold the claim of being the creator of the sub-compact (tractor) market,” Kubota’s product manager for compact utility tractors Justin Parrott says.
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“This is our 50th anniversary in Canada. Kubota started in the 1960s with tractors to fill a gap in the Asian market. Small, lightweight tractors. It was around ’72 for the U.S. and ’75 for Canada where they said, ‘Hey, maybe there’s a market outside of Asia we’re not really considering.’”
Breaking into a new market with an unfamiliar brand in those years, though, wasn’t as easy as it might be today with social media.
“We started knocking on doors at dealerships, saying, ‘Hey, we have this orange tractor. Do you want to see if there’s a market for it?’” Parrott says.
“I definitely wouldn’t call it an overnight success. It was really a couple of years for these things to start gaining popularity. Back then there was no social media or public outlets like we’re used to today. So it was a lot of word of mouth. And it started filling a market gap people didn’t know they needed.”
The brand remained a significant player in the compact tractor segment but eventually made a move into larger models. The range of Kubota tractors offered to Canadian buyers has since increased substantially.
“I think it was the late ’70s, early ’80s we started getting into the more utility-size tractors,” he says. “In 2000 we went back down to the BX Series and created that sub-compact market. That was really to do with the evolving times. People were moving away from cities. Going into rural one- to 10-acre properties was becoming a lot more popular. That’s what drove the need for that sub-compact market.
“It’s still a very large market for us. I think most people see Kubota as being the leader in the compact and sub-compact market.”
In 2019, five years after launching the M7 tractor line, the brand introduced its largest series, the M8, which now hits the 200-horsepower mark.
At the official introduction of the M8 tractor line at Grapevine, Texas, company executives said Kubota intended to become a major player in the commercial agriculture market. Three years before the M8 launch the company had already made a major step in that direction by buying U.S.-based implement manufacturer Great Plains, which produces seeding and tillage equipment.
Even earlier, in 2012, Kubota had acquired the Norwegian implement manufacturer Kverneland. Since then technology from that purchase has found its way into Kubota-branded round balers.
Kubota now has around 150 dealers across the country. And even though its product line has expanded significantly, the small tractor market continues to be a major part of its business.
Look for some high-profile advertising this year to mark the anniversary, as well as some custom-wrap options on tractors.
“We have some pretty big campaigns going on with our dealerships to celebrate 50 years,” Parrott says.
