Escorts manufactures a wide range of tractors, automotive components, railway equipment and construction & material handling equipment. The group have several business units that manufacture a wide range of tractors under the brand names Escort, Farmtrac and Powertrac. The current range involves over 45 models ranging from 25HP to 80HP. Escorts began marketing farm equipment, including tractors, in 1948 in partnership with Minneapolis-Moline. In 1949 they became a distributor of Massey Ferguson. By 1958, Escorts was importing Massey Ferguson tractors from Yugoslavia, which were produced by IMT.[1]
The tractor manufacturing division was started in 1960 in partnership with Ursus, with the first Escort tractors produced in 1965. In 1969, a partnership with Ford was set up to produce licensed Ford tractors for India.[2] Ford became New Holland, which is currently part of CNH Global, which in turn is owned by the Fiat Group. Their partnership ended in 1996.[1]
Escorts has production locations in Mrągowo, Poland that was purchased from Pol-Mot in 2000,[3] and in India. There was an assembly plant in Tarboro, North Carolina which was purchased from LongAgri, but the North American subsidiary went into receivership in 2008.[4] Customers, dealers and creditors are still trying to work through the North American troubles.[5] Farmtrac N.A. was purchased by Montana Tractors.
A new assembly plant was set up in 2008 in Ghana to assemble 2500 tractors a year.[6] And in 2009, and agreement was signed with İhlas Motor of Turkey to distribute Polish-built tractors in Turkey under the Eurotrak brand.[7]
Escorts tractors are exported around the world to about 41 countries.[2] In the USA, tractors built by Escorts were imported from India and Poland, and from LS Tractors in South Korea, all sold under the Farmtrac brand name.
Construction Equipment
Escorts Construction Equipment Limited (ECEL) was established in 1970 as the Yellow Line. A partnership with JCB in 1979 led to the production of Excavators.[1] With partners such as Doosan, Altec, Fassi, Hamm, Huata and IHI, ECEL builds fork-lifts, cranes, Backhoe Loaders, vibratory rollers, and excavators, to name a few.[8]
Backhoe loaders were built in a joint venture with JCB called Escorts JCB.