The 500 Series tractors from Massey Ferguson were very important to the company, especially in the European marketplace. Right from the mid-1970s launch through to the early 1980s, this range provided the company’s main driving force in many countries, including Britain.
In some respects, farmers had an idea about what to expect when the new 500 Series models arrived in 1976 because, the previous year, Massey Ferguson had introduced the first of the line in the shape of the 595 model, built exclusively at the Beauvais factory in France. Although mechanically this tractor was the first of the new generation, under the skin it was basically the same as the old 1080 model it replaced. True, it featured newly styled tinwork and a brand new cab, but it remained something of a badge engineering exercise, and perhaps wasn’t as successful as MF had hoped.
THE OLD ORDER
The 595 certainly generated a great deal of interest at its first appearances in public during 1975, looking, as it did, very different from all that had gone before. Only the articulated 1200 appeared remotely similar in the UK, and then only thanks to the front radiator surround.
The 88hp, four-cylinder 595 was bigger than the rest of the 100 Series models then in production, both in France and at Coventry. Most of
