Months before harvest, CLAAS Harvest Centre Esperance is preparing for machines to roll, with 33 LEXION combine harvesters lined up along the front fence last week.
About 23 of the impressive line up are new 2023 LEXIONs - just arrived off the boat - mainly flagship LEXION 8800 series with 515 kiloWatt (700 horsepower) MAN D42 engines, 18,000 litre grain tanks, up to 180 litres per second discharge capacity and new, larger, more comfortable TRION-style cabs with new, larger, high-resolution CEBIS touchscreen displays.
Among those, there are also five LEXION 8700 series with 466kW (625hp) Mercedes Benz engines, but these are identical to the 8800 in every other aspect.
Also in the line-up are several second-hand LEXIONs and customers' LEXIONs awaiting pre-season service.
"We've had a shipment of ordered machines come in - that's not all of them, we're still waiting on more LEXIONs in a follow-up shipment," said CLAAS Harvest Centre Esperance sales representative Dale Guest, explaining the impromptu display of harvest power.
"We have also just had the yard re-sheeted and the area out the front between us and Hill Street had just been cleaned up, so the most obvious place to park all the LEXIONs was in a line along the front fence out of the way," Mr Guest said.
"My wife (Jayde) happened to drive by after we'd done that and thought it looked pretty impressive.
"She's a photographer with a drone so she put it up and took some aerial shots."
Mr Guest said the new machines, including the batch still to come, were all sold - having been ordered by customers early last year.
"We've got a strong early order program to ensure farmers get their machines in time for harvest," he said.
"Our technicians will be preparing the machines for delivery as quickly as we can.
"So, we can get them out to customers as early as possible.
"Most of the LEXIONs we order here are the 8800s with the 700hp engine.
"Some of our customers are big corporate-style family farming operations and they run four or five plus of these machines.
"Most farmers in this region have at least two (combine harvesters), a farmer with only one harvester is quite rare down here."
Mr Guest said the new LEXION harvesters were destined for farms in the cropping area to the east of Esperance, as far north as Salmon Gums and as far west as Lake King and West River.
For information on the LEXION see claasharvestcentre.com
