TRACTOR SALES may be down overall in the UK so far this year, but Zetor UK is bucking the trend, albeit from a very low base.

Once a significant player, peaking at about 3000 units a year in the mid-1980s and accounting for 35% of the Welsh market, Zetor sales then went into steady decline throughout the 1990s.

But since the takeover of the Czech parent company by HTC in 2002, numbers have started to build again. Last year the company sold 366 units in Great Britain and this year it is on target to top 400.

“In the first quarter of 2005 the overall UK market was down 10.6%,” says joint managing director John Howden. “But our sales are up about 3%, with 165 tractors sold. This is despite the fact that last year we had four models on offer, but this year we have just two – the Proxima and Forterra.”

The revival of the Zetor name has coincided with a restructuring of the UK company, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of HTC. Headquarters has been moved from Kings Lynn to Downham Market and the dealer network increased to 50.

Mr Howden admits that the brand has something of a reputation to overcome stemming from problems the tractors had in the mid-1990s with brake snatch. But he insists the quality is now right, pointing to a joint venture Zetor had with John Deere at the Brno factory from 1994 to 1998.

“The Czechs gained a lot of knowledge about quality build from that experience.”

He also insists the new tractors offer value for money. Zetors are mechanically quite simple, so there is less to go wrong, and they are also popular in the second-hand export market, he says.