Kubota & Yanmar endured - What happened to Mitsubiski, Iseki (Hinomoto)?

[PILOON]

Mitsubishi is still very much around, only not as tractors.
Their engines are found in a lot of reefer trucks and powering all sorts of machinery as well as some other brands of CUT's.

Since I own a MT180D I can attest to its ruggedness and reliability.
So far I have not had any parts issues other than tires as they used a unique size (9.5 X18 R3) that only they used.
As a CUT is is fairly narrow and hence tippy but I got used to it.
I use mine mainly for snow duties but it is also equipped with a rugged FEL by Shultz that performs very well and as such I have moved many truckloads of gravel and fill.
Mine has a hi/low 3 speed gear box that probably would not compete in the present day market as few can master a clutch these days.
Heck a clutch transmission is a rare and only special order on very few cars and even trucks.

 

[buck12]

Does Mitsubishi still make some Mahindras smaller tractors? I had a Mahindra 2615 for 12 years which was actually a Mitsubishi. Great tractor.

 

[PsRumors]

But yet they both still exist. Iseki has 40 billion yen in revenue per year and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries forecasts 3700 billion yen of revenue in fiscal 2020. So this entire thread is much more about a narrow perception band than fading or disappearing industrial manufacturers.

The thread was about CUT presence not Corp existence. I was referring to the topic at hand

 

[Jframe]

About 1968 I was buying stumpage in southern NH, mostly eastern white pine, and logging it while going to college. I had a 1966 2-wheel drive F100 with a 352 and a 3-speed on the column which I had bought the previous year for $1,000 when it had 10,000 miles. It was the fastest pick-up I could find, as I was 18 years old. I stopped for some reason one winter day in Ossippee, NH when I was headed back to college and looked at a brand new 4 WD Oliver tractor. I think it was a diesel. It was the prettiest little thing I had ever seen that wasn't a girl. I wanted it but the asking price was $4,000 and it really wasn't practical. I was yarding my logs with a John Deere 1010 crawler using a scoot to keep the logs off the dirt, and the logs were going mostly to mills that had no debarker so they preferred my logs over those skidded tree-length. I have had a Yanmar tractor for a long time now, and that Oliver back in 1968 really wasn't all that much different from my Yanmar or a new Yanmar. But it cost a lot in the dollars of 1968. Had I been able to log full time instead of going to college I could have afforded a toy like that Oliver, and being a Live Free or Die Yankee I paid cash for everything, but while my yellow birch was going to Brattleboro, VT to make M 14 stocks I had to stay in college and take at least 12 credits or I would have been carrying an M 14 instead of a Stihl, and carrying an M 14 paid very little money.

 

[PILOON]

My Mitsubishi has close to 1800 hours on it now so I can attest to how rugged it is (and I don't baby it).

My friends have mostly Kubota's so I'm well positioned to compare.
IMHO a Mitsubishi is a very close match to Kubota for reliability and rugged construction as long as you match the same era builds.

 

[Snobdds]

My cat 305 has a mitsubishi motor in it. That has to be one of the best starting and running diesels I've ever owned. Bulletproof.

My MF GC1710 is basically an Iseki tractor. It too has a bulletproof diesel in it.

Japan made tractors are still the best made machines in my opinion.

 

[rScotty]

I think so too - at least for the ones we commonly see in the USA.
Here is how Compacts looked in 1982