Production of the company’s first lawn and garden tractor began at Horicon in 1963, when John Deere built 1000 units of the 110 model. An original 110 can be seen at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC; a fully restored, working example of this pioneering lawn tractor is also on display in the foyer of John Deere’s UK headquarters at Langar in Nottinghamshire.
“Reaching five million lawn tractors is a major milestone for us,” said Horicon factory manager Dan Hoffman. “Over the last 47 years we have established a reputation for making durable and reliable products that are now used throughout the world.”
John Deere’s turf equipment product marketing manager Henry Bredin added: “Since we started selling lawn tractors in the UK and Ireland in 1986, a range of popular machines from the 455 to the current X Series models have all come out of this factory, and have been the backbone of our commercial mowing business.”
The millionth John Deere lawn tractor, a 318 model, was produced at Horicon in 1984. The second million was reached by an LX188 in 1992. The factory achieved the 3 million mark in 1998 with the LT133 lawn tractor, and the 4 millionth machine was produced in March 2003.
John Deere Limited www.johndeere.co.uk
The photograph shows an X749 lawn tractor with 4WD and four-wheel steer, the newest model in the John Deere X700 Ultimate range.