Valmet & Valtra Parts

Originally a Finnish arms dealer, Valmet (Valtion Metallitehtaat), was created in 1951 when Finland decided to group its war making factories under one company dividing manufacturing markets into different factory locations. The tractor section was allocated to the Tourula factory as this seemed better equipped for the task in hand. Sales started well with over 2000 units being built by September 1954. The design team listened to their customers and continued to design and build more powerful machines. In 1958 Valmet decided to start exporting their products to China and Brazil which lead onto a factory being built in Brazil at Mogi das Cruzes, near São Paulo.

Forever evolving, Valmet looked at different agricultural areas (forestry) as well as various safety aspects of a tractor which lead to the development of the first integrated safety cab as standard on the Valmet 900 tractor. The company continued to grow with factories in Portugal as well as a new purpose built factory in Suolahti, as extra space was required for the assembly of modern tractors that’s was not available at the Tourula plant.

In 1979 Valmet acquired the Volvo brand of who had decided to ceased tractor production but continued to supply components to Valmet until 1990. The change of the brand to Valtra started when the state owned Valmet was incorporated into the Sisu company. Part of this change meant that the Valmet name could no longer be used and had to be phased out. The original idea was to use the Sisu name as the new brand but this was not welcomed by the Valmet consumers so the Valtra brand was given a new lease of life in 1996. Valtra went through a number of ownership changes from Sisu to Partek to Kone Corporation and finally to be part the AGCO family in 2004.