Today, Massey Ferguson and what is now Valtra are two tractor brands brought together by AGCO in 2004, but the companies had already cooperated on tractor development during the late eighties.

It was around 1986 that Valmet, which was then Finland's state owned manufacturer of tractors, decided that it needed a series of bigger machines to top out its range which basically stopped at the Valmet 2005 and 2105, launched in 1985.

Despite carrying the Valmet name they were basically the last of the Volvo BM six pot machines providing 120hp from the 2005 and, with a turbocharger added, 140hp from the 2105.

Volvo BM had always made the heavier tractor while Valmet focussed on smaller and lighter machines, but with the two companies combining resources to create the Nordic tractor range in 1982 the big old Volvo bruisers dressed as Valmets were starting to look dated.

Valmet had already experimented with a larger tractor in the mid seventies, the rather unique six wheel 150hp 1502 that proved to be too heavy and, right in the middle of the first oil crisis, rather too thirsty to enjoy any great success.

Yet the demand for bigger tractors was there. 100hp was now normal rather than exotic and the top of the Nordic range was the 905-4, which only just passed the mark with 105hp.

Something needed to be done but the company faced a major problem in that, even though the demand was there, the volumes would still be small, so it needed a partner to make it affordable.

The answer came through the engine division, a part of the Valmet empire that later went on to become AGCO Power, and its Danish customer Dronningborg who used the engines in its range of combine harvesters.

Massey Ferguson had been buying Dronningbourg combines in its own red and grey livery, but had insisted on Perkins engines, hardly surprising since it owned the diesel manufacturer at the time.

What was a little more surprising was that they fairly soon turned to Valmet engines, but whether this was a matter of cost or performance is not clear. However, it did convince the engineers at MF that Valmet engines were a worthy contender when the Beauvais plant was looking to create a 180hp tractor.

The 5.9L Perkins of the time was too small and the next model up was a V8, which would severely restrict the turning circle of a rigid framed four-wheel-drive tractor.

MF therefore went to look for another supplier and considered three manufacturers not normally associated with tractors at the time - DAF, Scania and Valmet.

There were several reasons for this, the first being that they were neutral, in that they did not come from a serious rival in the tractor business, while another was they were already producing engines of the right power for fitment to vehicles.

It was Valmet that won the contest with a new six pot 7.4L engine that it was then developing. This was the 612 DS which was considered to be exactly the right size.

The other great advantage was that the engine had been designed for off road vehicles right from the start, the chief feature being extra support for the cylinder liner making the block strong enough to be used as a weight bearing member while rigid enough to ensure oil could not escape past the pistons through it being distorted.

The first tractor to have this motor at its heart was the MF 3680 which was presented to the public in 1988 with 180hp on tap. It was also finished in blue and sold as the Landini 19000 in Italy.

This collaboration worked well for both companies and it opened the door for a much more ambitious joint venture, the design of a tractor using components from each that could be sold by both.

The resulting models were the Valmet Mega 8300 and the turbo boosted Mega 8600 which became Valmet's most powerful tractor to date at 170hp.

The corresponding Massey Ferguson models were the MF 3670 and MF 3690, the latter receiving two engine upgrades before being withdrawn in 1995. Landini had them in its catalogue as the 17500 and 19500.

At the start of the venture the diesel engine factory at Linnavuori, which is a three-hour drive from the tractor assembly plant at Suolahti, was an individual company within the Valmet group, but in 1990 it was transferred to Valmet Tractors.

This brought it firmly under the control of the tractor company and in the mid nineties Valmet Diesel was renamed to SisuDiesel with the brand name being changed to reflect this a little later.

After two more changes of ownership, AGCO finally acquired the tractor and engine factories in 2004 and so it at last enjoyed some stability within the American corporation which has developed the factory and sold the engines under the AGCO Power label over the last 21 years.

Steyr were another customer for the Beauvais built models with its 9000 series of 1993 which started at 155hp and went to 200hp in the 9200, a model that was available until 1997, a year after it was acquired by Case Corporation.

Valmet and Steyr had been involved in a previous joint project in 1986 in which they had partnered in the design of a smaller range of engines for small to mid sized tractors.

A great deal of the work had been done before the controlling bank insisted that Steyr switched to working with Klöckner Humboldt Deutz AG (KHD) which had the historic Deutz engine brand under its umbrella.

The Austrian company had to abandon the tie up with Valmet and eventually lost its engine production to Deutz altogether while Valmet picked up the pieces and carried on building the new engine themselves, which went into the smaller Mezzo series of tractors of 1991.