S. Ordzhonikidze Kharkiv Tractor Plant

The Sergo Ordzhonikidze Kharkiv Tractor Plant (Харьковский тракторный завод имени Серго Орджоникидзе) began work in 1931. The plant has built the SKhTZ-15-30, KhTZ-7, DT-14, DT-20, T-25, T-125 and T-150K wheeled tractors and the SKhTZ-NATI, DT-54, DT-55, T-75, T-74 and T-150 crawler tractors.

The plant's founding date can be considered 1 October 1931, when the first SKhTZ-15-30 wheeled tractor left the assembly line. This firstborn of the Ukrainian tractor industry had a 30-horsepower kerosene engine and iron wheels.

From 1937 to 1941 the SKhTZ-NATI-1TA crawler tractor with a 52-horsepower kerosene engine and a wooden cab was built. Its production continued during the Second World War, when the plant was evacuated to the town of Rubtsovsk in the Altai region. In 1942 the Altai Tractor Plant was established there on the basis of the evacuated equipment of the Kharkiv and Stalingrad tractor plants.

From 1949 to 1961 the much more advanced DT-54 crawler tractor with a diesel engine was built, which many of our older-generation machine operators should remember. It had the D-54 diesel engine with 54 hp. Its wide-track version, the DT-55, was also built.

From 1951 to 1956 (according to other sources 1950–1955) the plant built the KhTZ-7, a general-purpose row-crop tractor with a 12-horsepower 2-cylinder petrol engine, which was one of the first tractors built in Soviet plants to use pneumatic tyres and a hydraulic linkage. On the KhTZ-7 the DT-14 with a 14 hp single-cylinder diesel was developed and built from 1955; it was replaced in 1958 by the DT-20 with an 18-horsepower engine. The DT-20 was built until 1969.

From 1966 (according to other sources 1969) to 1972 the plant built the T-25 general-purpose row-crop tractor with a 20-horsepower 2-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine, whose production was then transferred to the Vladimir Tractor Plant.

Production of the T-74 crawler tractor, still common on our fields in the 1980s, began in 1962 and stayed on the assembly line for almost a quarter of a century: the last ones left the line only in 1984. Before that, from 1960 to 1962, the transitional T-75 was built.

From 1962 to 1967 about 200 T-125 articulated wheeled tractors were built. In the early 1970s, as its further development, production began of the well-known T-150K tractor with a 165 hp turbocharged 6-cylinder V diesel, and of the T-150 crawler tractor. Both are still in production in slightly updated form.

Today the plant builds a wide range of wheeled and crawler tractors with engine powers of 35–190 hp, as well as construction and road machinery based on them, tracked prime movers, diesel fuel injection equipment, cutting tools and process equipment, consumer goods and spare parts.

See more on the manufacturer's website!