Tech
1979 KH10 excavator, other rare Kubotas found and restored
Lance Taylor was on a mission to find Kubota’s first excavator.
The KH-10 compact excavator debuted in 1979, and finding one in 2020 was proving extremely difficult. But it was a search that Taylor, Kubota Tractor Corporation director of engineering, was determined would succeed.
It had to.
He had been given the responsibility of finding and restoring 15 of Kubota’s rare first models in preparation for the company’s 50th anniversary in the United States. The Japanese company, which formed in 1890, launched its U.S. subsidiary, the Kubota Tractor Corporation, in 1972.
“We did sell a lot of them,” Taylor says of the KH-10. “But as with most construction equipment, all those were used until they were scrapped.”
Eventually, he caught a break. After 18 months of hitting dead ends, he asked Kubota salespeople to check with their dealer contacts to see if they could locate a 1979 KH-10.
One came back with an exciting discovery.
“You’ve got to hear the story”
One of the salespeople alerted Taylor that a dealer in Pennsylvania actually remembered the first KH-10 D he sold.
“How’s that?” Taylor asked, a little skeptically.
“You’ve got to hear the story,” came the reply.
So Taylor called the dealer.
One day about 40 years ago, an Amish farmer had come in with a wad of cash and wanted to buy the excavator. But he had one condition.
“You have to deliver this to the back of my property by the trees in the middle of the night,” he told the dealer.
So the dealer did as he asked. On arrival, he was met by the farmer who was carrying a can of green paint and a paint brush.
He began painting the excavator green. Not wanting his neighbors to see he was using a modern machine, he kept the excavator camouflaged and well-hidden.
“It’s understandable why he remembers this so well,” Taylor says of the dealer.
The dealer thought the excavator was still on the farm.
And it was.
“This family still had it,” Taylor says.
They had also still been using it.
“It was in rough shape,” he says.
They were interested in making a deal, and they were shrewd negotiators. Taylor ended up giving them a brand-new Kubota KX71 compact excavator in exchange.
“I had no choice,” he says. “I couldn’t let that one go.”
The KH-10 D before being restored by Luke Olson of Olson Tractor Restoration.Kubota
“Some of them are extremely rare”
Taylor’s search for the Kubota rarities started about two and a half years ago when the U.S. subsidiary began discussing what to do for its 50th anniversary, which is this year.
Taylor knew of two early tractors that were in storage and hadn’t been restored. He didn’t know anything about them. Before joining Kubota seven years ago, he had restored antique cars. “So I was interested in restoring those two units.”
His team of engineers was on board as well. He pitched the idea to company executives of finding and restoring six milestone tractors and equipment in time for the anniversary.
“We want a lot more than six,” they responded.
“So we settled on 15,” he says. “And then it ended up 19 by the time I was done. So it was a big project.”
The company already had only four of the models he wanted. The search began for the rest.
“We spent countless hours searching online auction sites, eBay – you name it – anything we could do to try and find some of these,” he says. “Some of them are extremely rare.”
A “priceless” find
This 1987 PX2100 was a prototype model that has been restored after a lengthy search-and-rescue mission. It was on display at the Kubota Connect event in October in Grapevine, Texas.Equipment WorldAlong with the KH-10, possibly the rarest find was Kubota’s PX-2100, a radio-control mowing tractor that came out in in 1987 and soon disappeared from the scene.
Not many were made, and they cost a whopping $25,000 at the time. “We think we only made a few dozen of those,” he says.
They were unique machines for their time, more of a test of Kubota engineering than a product expected to storm the market. It had a diesel engine, all hydraulics, four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering. And it was operated similar to a radio-controlled model airplane.
The tractors could also cause some confusion.
“They had a problem because it would be mowing on a hillside, and it would stop traffic because people thought it was out of control because there’s nobody on the scene,” he says. “So a lot of the owners actually built dummies, fake people, to sit on them while they remote-controlled them so the traffic wouldn’t get stopped.”
He sent out an all points bulletin to dealers with a wanted poster. A few promising leads were dead ends. Then he got a call from a dealer who thought he had seen one at Ohio State University.
After some emails between himself and university staff, Taylor learned they still had it. Taylor was curious as to how it ended up there.
“You gave it to us,” was the reply.
“It’s actually the prototype that we gave to Ohio State back in the ’80s,” Taylor says.
Ohio State had used it for a hydraulics control class.
“I’m glad you called me,” a professor told Taylor. “We had a professor come in and change up the class a couple of years ago, and he threw it in the scrap bin. I dug it out and stuck it over here in the corner.”
“So we’re very lucky to have it,” Taylor says.
The restorations
The restored KH-10 D on display at Kubota Connect in October. The 18-horsepower excavator weighs 6,945 pounds and has a digging depth of 8 feet 2 inches.Equipment WorldThe KH-10 excavator, the PX radio-controlled mower and most of the other pieces Taylor acquired needed extensive restoration. With a deadline of two and a half years, Taylor and his team needed help.
Taylor contacted a friend who restores Allis-Chalmers tractors. The friend told him about Luke Olson, owner of Olson Tractor Restoration in Elmwood, Wisconsin. As luck would have it, not only is Olson a whiz at restoring old tractors, but he was once a Kubota mechanic.
“He does fantastic work,” Taylor says of Olson.
Olson restored 11 of the pieces, including the KH-10, which was his first excavator restoration project. It was also his most challenging job.
“I had never seen one that age before,” Olson says.
It was in rough shape.
“We overhauled the motor and took the subframe off, the tracks off,” he says. “I had it all the way down to the bare bones.”
The KH-10 D was Kubota’s first piece of construction equipment introduced in the U.S.Equipment WorldFor Taylor’s team, the PX radio-controlled mower was its most challenging restoration.
“It didn’t really even look like a PX,” he says. The engine and hydraulic systems were there, but modern controls had been put on it. It needed a lot of work, yet it had only been run about 70 hours.
“There were so many parts missing,” Taylor says.
Because it was a low-production machine, parts were difficult to find.
“I scoured Japan and all over for parts for it. And we couldn’t find a lot of stuff.”
So he bought two more PXs that were in much worse condition and used the parts from them to remanufacture the missing parts.
“I personally made dozens of parts for that machine,” he says. “I did all the fiberglass work on that one.” One of the engineers on his team repainted it.
“It was a big project to get that thing back to original,” Taylor says.
He believes it is the most valuable piece in the collection. It’s also unique – a prototype with no serial number. He’s not sure what it would cost to buy one today. He contacted a dealer in Canada who has a restored PX, and he wouldn’t accept any offer for it.
“In my opinion,” Taylor says, “it’s priceless.”
“My babies”
Lance Taylor, Kubota Tractor Corporation director of engineering, at the controls of the restored KH-10 D.Equipment WorldTaylor is hard-pressed to choose a favorite out of the 19 restored Kubota classics.
The KH-10 and PX are definitely on the list.
There’s also Kubota’s first two tractors for the U.S. market, which came out in 1965. They were sold under the McCulloch brand – of chainsaw fame – for dipping a toe in the market.
“They approached McCulloch and said, ‘We’ll paint our tractors your color, put your name on them – can you distribute them?’
“They sent 100 of the D20s and 100 of the G12s over to the United States, and they sold out quickly. And that’s really what launched the brand in the United States.”
Then came the L200, the first Kubota-branded tractor in the U.S.
“By ’72, KTC was established, and it’s history from there,” Taylor says.
To honor that history and the company’s many milestones in tractors, mowers, excavators and UTVs, Taylor and his team have amassed an impressive collection of restored rare Kubota machines. They were recently on display at the Kubota Connect event in Grapevine, Texas, for its dealer network, and plans are in the works for a permanent display at the Texas headquarters.
Taylor has stories for each machine – the challenges of finding them and restoring them, as well as their place in the company’s 50 years in the U.S. market.
He made sure that all of them would be in top condition.
“I wanted them all running,” he says. “So they all do run.”
He’s operated each one of them.
“I like them all,” he says. “I’ve got stories for every one of them now, so they’re kind of like kids actually. …
“They’re my babies.”
Rare Kubotas in photos
Check out photos below of some of the highlights from Taylor’s search-and-rescue mission for Kubota’s milestone models in the U.S.
KH-10 D back in the day
The KH-10 D, Kubota’s first construction machine on the U.S. market, in its heyday.Kubota
1965 McCulloch-branded Kubota D20 tractor
This 1965 McCulloch D20 was built by Kubota and introduced as a test product for the Japanese company on the U.S. market.Equipment World
The D20 and its companion subcompact tractor the McCulloch-branded G12 sold quickly in the U.S., leading Kubota to launch tractors under its own brand.Equipment World
Equipment World
1967 Kubota L200 tractor
The 1967 Kubota L200 was the first Kubota-branded tractor for the U.S. market.Equipment World
1976 Kubota L245HC tractor
The 1976 Kubota L245HC tractor was a unique piece in that the steering was offset to the side to give the operator a better view of the seeder and coulter plow.Equipment World
Equipment World
Equipment World
2004 Kubota RTV900
Kubota’s first UTV, the RTV900, launched in 2004. This one had been outside its whole life and was covered in rust before Lance Taylor and his team acquired and restored it. They took it apart and sandblasted the frame and completely rebuilt it.Equipment World
Caterpillar is bidding farewell to its 259D3, 279D3 and 289D3 compact track loaders with the introduction of its new, next-generation 255 and 266 models.
The completely redesigned models debuted at media and customer events at Caterpillar’s Edwards, Illinois, Demonstration and Learning Center last week. The 255 and 265 offer improved engine performance, more lift height, a roomier cab and more standard technology than their predecessors.
“We kept the DNA of the D3 series while reimagining the possibilities of loader performance using voice of customer feedback to lead the way,” says Trevor Chase, product application specialist for Caterpillar. “Both next-generation models leverage the many benefits offered by the vertical lift design. The new Cat 255 replaces the 259D3, while the 265 replaces both the 279D3 and 289D3 machines.”
The CTLs are the last of Cat’s building and construction products to get the next-generation treatment and simplified nomenclature. The first number (2) represents the skid steer loader and compact track loader machine family; the middle number (5 or 6) designates the machine size; and the ending number (5) is the compact track loader identifier. Skid steers will be identified by a 0 end number. Additional new models will roll out in the coming months, the company says.
CaterpillarMore power and torque
Cat equipped the 255 with a C2.8T engine and the 265 with a C2.8TA engine, both at 74 horsepower. This gives the new machines a significant boost in torque – 13% for the 255 and 43% for the 256 – over their D3-Series predecessors. The engine and cooling package are mounted lower in the frame for added visibility out the rear window and stability while lifting heavy loads.
Customers attest that the added lift height makes truck loading easier. The 255 offers 10 feet 4 inches of lift height, while the 265 can reach 11 feet high.
“The lift height has made a big difference when loading trucks,” said Derrick Roger, owner of Coast to Coast Lawnscapes, who spent several months testing the 255. “You can get on top of that truck now and empty the bucket; whereas, before you would have to shake the bucket to try to get the material to fall out.”
The 255 delivers 36% more tilt breakout, 26% higher lift breakout force and a 24% increase in rated operating capacity (ROC). The 265 also delivers 19% higher tilt breakout force and 22% higher lift breakout force.
Standard hydraulic pressure has been increased to 3,500 psi, allowing the 255 and 265 to operate all Cat Smart Attachments with the standard auxiliary hydraulics provided.
If demanding attachments require additional hydraulic flow, customers can have their Cat dealer activate the high flow functionality on the machine or remotely via software update. This makes it possible for the CTLs to hit 30 gallons per minute of flow at the standard system pressure.
A High Flow XPS factory option increases auxiliary hydraulic system pressure to 4,061 psi for both models, while also increasing the hydraulic flow to 30 gallons per minute for the 255 and 34 gallons per minute for the 265.
The torsion suspension undercarriage delivers better operator comfort, track wear and material retention, plus the stiffer design results in smoother graded surfaces, Cat says. A new 12.6-inch bar-tread narrow track option is available on the 255.
A more spacious cab
Cat says it has increased the cab width by 2.75 inches without making the machines wider and the footwell-to-ceiling height by 1.8 inches. The larger cab gives operators an additional 1.5 inches of hip room and 1.1 inches more width between the joysticks.
A range of new mechanical and air-ride suspension seat options are available, including a ventilated and heated seat. A new automatic temperature control allows operators to set a specific temperature. Relocated vents help cool or heat the machine quickly.
The standard package includes the same 5-inch LCD monitor as the D3 Series CTLs, which offers Bluetooth connectivity and functionality for the rearview camera feed, creep, job clock, and maintenance reminders.
Customers can upgrade to a new 8-inch advanced touchscreen monitor, like the display found in Cat’s next-generation mini excavators and small loaders. It delivers advanced radio control and supports the 270-degree multicamera option. The advanced monitor pairs with the advanced joysticks for integrated control of all machine functions and adjustments.
“You can adjust the movement – or the aggressiveness or the conservativeness – of how your tracks and lift arms work through your advanced touchscreen display,” Dante Thomas, skid steer and CTL marketing manager, said. “And you can control of all of your display functions from the advanced joysticks. There are buttons with enter and select functions on those joysticks that you’re able to change any functionality that is possible.”
Cat also redesigned the entry, making the 255 and 265 easier to enter and exit. The cab door can be opened even when the lift arms are not fully lowered to the frame stops. It can be removed without tools in less than one minute.
Advanced technologies
Calling the 255 and 265 “one of the most attachment-friendly machines on the market,” Thomas says both the standard and advanced monitors can run Cat Smart Attachments, such as the dozer and grader blades and backhoe.
“It has attachment recognition that when you plug the attachment into the machine, it recognizes which attachment is connected. It adjusts your joystick pattern, so it gives you intuitive and simple control,” says Thomas.
The available Cat Product Link Elite system tracks machine hours, location, asset utilization, provides fault code details and delivers advanced monitoring and machine health, that is remotely accessible via VisionLink. In addition, Product Link Elite provides remote flash and troubleshooting capabilities and quickly enables the remote activation of the SEA High Flow feature.
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Quick Data is a snapshot of new and used wheel loader sales trends from Randall Reilly’s EDA equipment financing data, TopBid auction price service and EquipmentWatch market trend reports.
Demand for wheel loaders has softened with new and used financed wheel loader sales down year-over-year from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023 according to Randall Reilly’s EDA equipment financing data.
Financed new wheel loader sales dropped 10%, while used financed wheel loader sales fell by 15% compared to the same period last year.
Cat (22.4%), Deere (21.0%) and Komatsu (12.4%) held their positions year-over-year as the top three sellers of new financed wheel loaders. Top models sold included the Deere 544 P-Tier (401), Deere 624 P-Tier (380) and the Komatsu WA270-8 (364).
[Watch: “A Really Solid Machine” – Test Run of Komatsu’s WA475-10 Wheel Loader]
Cat (28.5%) and Deere (22.9%) also snagged the No. 1 and 2 positions for the highest number of financed used units sold, with Case (14.7%) claiming the third spot. On the date we examined the data, the top-selling models were the Case 321F (340), Cat 926M (164) and the Case 621G (159).
During this period, there were more buyers of new loaders in Florida (955) than in any other state. Buyers of new wheel loaders were also prevalent in Texas (893) and Illinois (665). Those states were also top buyers of used financed machines, with 712 units sold in Texas, 413 in Florida, and 412 in Illinois.
EDA data is compiled from state UCC-1 filings on financed construction equipment. EDA continually updates this data as information comes in from each state.
[Related Content: A Rundown of the Latest Wheel Loaders for 2023]
Used Wheel Loader Market
Used wheel loader prices rose 10.1% for the 12-month period from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023, according to Randall Reilly’s EquipmentWatch market trend data.
The average price for a used wheel loader was $137,465 in July 2022 compared to $151,367 in July 2023. The average age of used wheel loaders fell slightly during the period, dropping from 8.8 years to 8.3 years.
EquipmentWatchThe average age and price were calculated on 153,356 resale listings during the period in the EquipmentWatch database.
Over the last 12 months, prices for used wheel loaders have in general increased, with the largest gains in October 2022 (6.5%) and February 2023 (2.9%).
EquipmentWatch defines fair market value (FMV) as the monetary value of an asset that can be expected in a transaction with a single seller and single buyer, neither of whom is under any compulsion or time restriction to complete the transaction. FMV for heavy equipment is most closely associated with the private resale market, as opposed to the public auction market.
Wheel Loader Auction Prices
Caterpillar also dominated the auction charts, accounting for 18 of the top 20 wheel loaders sold in terms of price for the 12-month period of September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023. Deere and Komatsu were the only other manufacturers to appear on the list.
The top auction price spot went to a 2021 Cat 966M with 2,188 hours. It sold for $400,000 at a Ritchie Bros. auction in Orlando, Fla., on September 21, 2022. The second-highest price paid was $315,000 for a 2019 Cat 980M with 7,836 hours at another Ritchie Bros. sale in Atlanta, on December 1, 2022. Rounding out the top three was a 2018 Deere 944K with 8,941 hours. It sold for $290,00 at a J.M. Wood Auction Co. sale in Montgomery, Ala., on March 21, 2023.
In total, there were 358 wheel loaders sold at auctions tracked by Top Bid during this time, with an average price of $99,747. (This does not include any units sold for less than $5,000.)
EDA, Top Bid and EquipmentWatch are owned by Randall Reilly, parent of Equipment World.
[Related Content: Heavy Equipment Auctions Set for Second Half of 2023]
Volvo Construction Equipment bought Terex’s off-road truck line in 2014, and six years later, it rebranded its articulated haulers under the Rokbak name.
On this episode of The Dirt, we hear from Paul Douglas, Volvo vice president of rigid haulers, who explains the differences between the old Terex line and the Rokbak trucks. He also gives a hint at some of the new things coming from Rokbak, including redesigned cabs and replacing the current trucks with new models. There’s also the possibility of a new size truck to hit the market.
Rokbak, as with other construction equipment brands, is working toward a zero-emissions future. On this episode, he explains where the articulated dump truck market is heading in terms of alternative fuel. He adds that customers will see big changes in emissions and engines in the next five years, with the ultimate goal of reaching zero emissions within 10 years.
So to learn more about Rokbak and what the brand has in store for the future, check out this episode of The Dirt.
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