A busy farming and contracting business has renewed its fleet with six brand-new JCB Fastrac 4220 iCON tractors turned out in a distinctive black and silver colour scheme.

Delivered to Robert Tuckwell Contractors, based at Mursley in Buckinghamshire, by JCB dealer Oliver Landpower’s Tingewick branch, the new Fastracs have joined a seventh example purchased in 2024.

“Because of their speed and comfort, the JCB Fastrac is ideal for any work that involves towing equipment – so hauling silage trailers, manure spreaders, slurry tankers, trailers carrying hardcore for farm track renewal, that sort of thing,” says Daniel Tuckwell, who runs the 3,800-acre farming and contracting operation with his father Robert.

“We like them for the way they get from A to B in the shortest possible time, and our operators love them with a passion for being the comfiest tractor on the market, enabling them to complete long working days when necessary.”

The Tuckwells grow milling wheat and both forage and energy maize across the land they farm, and also provide an extensive range of contracting services to other farms in the area.

They are no strangers to the Fastrac, having purchased four in 2019, replacing them with six in 2021, and swapping those out for another six in 2023.

“We have a policy of working with JCB and Olivers to change the fleet at what is judged to be the best time to extract the best residual value, because for us it’s all about ownership cost per hour,” explains Daniel. “So far, that’s worked out at around two years, with between 3,800 and 4,400 hours on the clock in the case of our latest change-over.”

The new tractors bought in 2023 gave the Tuckwells their first experience of the new Fastrac iCON version with a new transmission mode for road driving, an ISOBUS option and all-new control electronics featured in the iCON armest console and touch-screen display.

“The iCON display’s content and the way you navigate through it is incredibly user-friendly, and it’s transformed the amount of data and information you can get out if,” says Daniel. “Whoever put it together really understands how operators use such systems in the yard for setting up and out in the field.”

A comprehensive specification for the Fastracs also helps in making the most of the tractors’ capabilities while appealing to the skilled operators who have individual responsibility for looking after “their” tractor.

The new 2025 Fastrac 4220s are all to the top-spec Pro Line version, which means that, for the operator, they come complete with a heated and ventilated leather-upholstered driver’s seat, heated front and rear windows, headland turn assist, a rear hitch camera feed to the touch-screen, and ISOBUS “plug and play” implement controls.

Power beyond to drive implement-mounted hydraulic motors, extra-bright LED work-lights and twin flashing roof beacons are also part of the package, along with Hill Hold for the stepless transmission, and two-wheel drive Traction Control, which helps maintain tyre grip when turning off a road into a loose surfaced or muddy gateway.

In addition, two of Tuckwell’s seven Fastracs are equipped with fully-integrated satellite guidance with section control for light field cultivation.

These features all come on top of the Fastrac’s unique all-round suspension, dual circuit air braking system and fully-legal 60kph top speed.

Combined, these give the Fastrac unrivalled capability on the road – an essential characteristic when the Tuckwell tractors can be travelling up to 30 miles from base to customers’ farms, and do plenty of road work when they get there.

The 3.5 tonne front linkage enables operators to carry essential equipment and supplies in a toolbox, and to fit a “bale bumper” when a Fastrac is tasked with gathering up big straw bales with a self-loading chaser at harvest.

And that bespoke black and silver colour scheme?

Apart from looking pretty “mean” the eye-catching livery is a form of advertising – any farmers seeing the tractors out on the road or working in a field will know it is one of the fleet of Fastracs operated by the Tuckwells contracting team.