CLAAS

After seeing the family business struggling financially, Franz Claas decided to set up his own small business with his brothers. Together they began producing ag straw binders on their home farm. The following year, the brothers set up the ‘Claas Brothers’ business.

The problem with the early straw binders was unreliable binding. To solve this problem, August Claas worked on the central mechanism of the straw binder, the knotter. The patented “knotter billhook with floating upper jaw” greatly improved the knotter’s tying reliability. The reliable CLAAS straw binders became bestsellers and the flagship product of the Harsewinkel-based company.

Encouraged by the success of their knotter, the Claas brothers looked for their next opportunity. They were fascinated by the American emerging combine harvester, which had never worked in Europe. They developed their own working model, which was successfully tested on and sold from a farm in Zschernitz, Germany, in 1936. Marking the birth of the first European combine harvester.

When the economic boom came to an end, demand for agricultural machinery fell sharply, prompting CLAAS to change its corporate strategy. CLAAS expanded its product range to include mowers, tedders, swathers, loader wagons and forage harvesters. This transformed CLAAS from purely a combine harvester manufacturer into a broad-based harvesting machinery specialist.

CLAAS initially acquired a stake in Renault Agriculture and then, in several stages, took over the tractor factory in Le Mans with its rich tradition. The Renault orange was replaced by the bright CLAAS green, and CLAAS’ long-held dream of manufacturing its own tractors was finally realised.