About Us & History

Fieldtorque Taranaki Ltd is a family owned and operated business. It was started in July 2006 by David & Kathryn Hinton.

David & Kathryn started up an Agriculture Contracting Business back in 1985 with mainly Massey Ferguson tractors and always sticking true to the brand through the years. After building a successful business with these outstanding machines, they decided to sell their business to David’s brother Mark in 2002 and venture into farming, purchasing David’s Great Grandfathers Farm from his Uncle, Robert Hinton.

It was about at this time David & Kathryn’s son, Carl left school and was still very passionate for the Massey Ferguson & Fendt brand. He went off to start his apprenticeship at the local Massey Ferguson & Fendt dealership in Hawera as a tractor mechanic.

Early in 2006 at the dealership Carl was working at, it was announced that it would be closing the doors and shifting back to Feilding. Carl came home that night and talked to his father David insisting that they must do something to keep the brands alive in Taranaki.

David & Kathryn purchased the old Stratford Press printing building at 400 Broadway in Stratford and setup shop on the 10^th of July 2006. Carl was a mechanic in the shop along with Graham Lovell. Kathryn was in the office with Barbara Old, and David was the salesman, while still running the farm it was definitely a challenge. The business was always and still is based on service. Coming from a contracting and farming background we knew that having good back up service was essential, also with David & Carl being mechanics by trade, we were probably a bit one sided to the service side of the business. Having great staff, great brands and loyal customers the business went from strength to strength. Carl went on to become Service Manager and ran the workshop.

In 2011 Carls sister, Paula joined the team and took on the job of running the Parts department where she grew it to a whole new level.

Fieldtorque has always had a great staff retention rate with a lot of the original members still being there today.

Kathryn had always dreamed of taking the business further with a nice new dealership. In 2018 David & Kathryn purchased a new & bigger site at the other end of town (101 Broadway) which we are at now. After a lot of planning and designing to what works for our business, a completely new building was erected and still as always, designed around backup service. The team moved into their new premises in May 2021. (Fieldtorque MK2)

Kathryn fell ill in May 2017 with cancer and unfortunately passed away on the 15^th of February 2019, never being able to see what all her hard work had achieved.

The building is dedicated to the memory of Kathryn, and her legacy continues here at Fieldtorque with her daughter Paula still working in the Parts department, her son Carl running the dealership as General Manager & Director as well as Carl’s wife Nicola in the office.

Husband David still owns & works at the dealership in the background and is still very passionate for our brands, our customers, our province and what we do.

We are very proud that we are the only Tractor & Ag dealership in Taranaki that is 100% locally owned & operated.

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