Concept cars and motorcycles are a dime a dozen. Concept tractors? They're about as rare as hen's teeth. That hasn't stopped Czech tractor company Zetor hitting the Agritechnica fair in Hannover with a pimpin' concept that looks more Concorso D'Eleganza than field d'asparaguza, thanks to the help of storied Italian design house Pininfarina.
Bust out your Tiffany pitchfork, your Gucci overalls and your best Jimmy Choo gumboots, Concept Zetor by Pininfarina is the only choice for fashion-forward farming folk.
The Italian styling house, best known for its famous Ferrari designs, has produced a concept tractor to inform Zetor's future design direction. According to Zetor, the new design "shifts Zetor to a more intense, emotional experience that is highly sensual, dynamic and modern." It looks pretty sweet in deep, rich red, although there's no photos to show how it'll look accessorized with mud and faeces.
It's worth remembering that Ferrari's famous competitor Lamborghini started out as a tractor maker itself and, in fact, still makes some pretty sweet looking farm machinery in its own right. For example, this fella:
So perhaps it's not completely outrageous to apply high-end european styling to farm machinery. But let's see if we can work out what Pininfarina brought to the Concept Zetor. Here's a standard Zetor Crystal 160 from the current model catalogue:
And a similar photo of the Concept Zetor:
Back to back, the regular one actually looks pretty nice in its own right. The Pininfarina design boasts a slightly more slanted hood, revised headlights, tinted windows and funky hubcaps. The roof section shows some nice new details and the useful bits at the front are replaced with, or covered by, a new piece of bodywork.
The changes aren't earth-shatteringly huge, and I'm not convinced they're as likely to sway the average farmer nearly as much as horsepower, reliability or practical touches. But still, now we've seen a concept tractor designed by supercar specialists, and that's not something you can say every day.
Source: Zetor
