Wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn, a combine is the best machine to harvest grain crops. As opposed to the rather laborious muscle power operation employed until the early 1800s, this mechanical workhorse combines reaping, threshing and winnowing into a single automated process. With the recent launch of the New Holland CR10.90 Elevation, harvesting standards have been pushed further than ever before.
So what sets the new agricultural tool apart from others before it? For a start, this bad boy is propelled by the most powerful engine in this segment – a Fiat-sourced 653 horsepower 16-liter Cursor turbo diesel with Common Rail and Tier4B ECOBlue Hi-eSCR technologies, which was voted Diesel Engine Of The Year 2014. That massive tower-of-power drinks fuel by the bucketload, but fret not 'cause the CR10.90 Elevation is fitted with a gargantuan 340-gallon (1,287-liter) fuel tank for a day's worth of harvesting.
Thanks to a 410 bushel grain tank, which translates to 14.500 liters or 140 bath tubs, and a 4-bushel per second unloading capacity and the extra-long folding 34-foot (10.3-meter) unloading auger, productivity hikes by 15 percent and grain crackage is as low as 0.2 percent of the harvest. "The new CR Series is the culmination of 40 years of Twin Rotor technology," declared Dan Valen, New Holland North America Cash Crop Equipment Segment Manager. "It offers the best of New Holland's smart harvesting technologies: Twin Pitch rotors, Dynamic Feed Roll, SmartTrax rubber tracks, Tier 4B ECOBlue Hi-eSCR engine technologies - all working together to allow producers to harvest in a new dimension."
It even has a 10.4-inch IntelliView IV color touchscreen that puts all the key parameters at the operator's fingertips, for crying out loud. Does your car even have a media screen that big? Furthermore, a force-based CommandGrip multifunction joystick makes it easy to fine tune harvesting speed, while a second 10.4-inch monitor is an option designed for operators that require the maximum amount of data. If Mercedes-Benz made an agricultural version of the S-Class luxury sedan, then the New Holland CR10.90 Elevation would be it. Why? You've got no less than three types of seating options, from the standard wide cloth to the heated deluxe leather trimmed seat garnished with air suspension and active ventilation.
If you're the type of farmer that harvests at night, then the flagship CR model can be kitted out with high-intensity discharge lights and even LEDs. So what about the price? Well, the CR10.90 Eleveation isn't for everybody, but those who can use it and afford it, the sticker price in North America for this Class 10 harvesting combine is a whopping $745,000. To put that into perspective, $745,000 equals to 15 units of the BMW X4 xDrive35i and about $25k pocket money. Big machines come with big numbers, alright.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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