Claas is celebrating a major milestone in its combine harvester history, with half a million now built since their first M.D.B. combine was produced in 1936.

Since then the company say their combine harvesters, such as the Matador, Senator, Dominator and most recently the Lexion have set standards both for technology and, as a result of that, for high levels of output and efficiency. 

Alongside this has been the development of operator assistance systems such as yield mapping in the early 1990's, Telematics in 2005 and now Cemos introduced in 2013.

As is traditional, Claas say they will also be recognising this major milestone with several anniversary machines, sporting a special paint finish and branding. In addition all combines manufactured this year will have celebratory stickers on them.

Jan-Hendrik Mohr, Claas CEO said, "500,000 Claas combine harvesters are, above all, 500,000 success stories, because farmers and contractors worldwide have placed their trust in us 500,000 times."