Large crowds turned out to celebrate the return of the tractor and its expedition team at special homecoming ceremonies held at the AGCO manufacturing plant where the tractor was designed and built, and at the Town Hall where Madame Caroline Cayeux, Mayor of Beauvais, welcomed them back on behalf of the city.

Special guests at the cermonies included Antarctica2 expedition’s ambassador and lead driver, Manon Ossevoort, a 38-year-old theatre actress from the Netherlands who in leading the Massey to the South Pole completed her 12-year dream of driving a tractor "to the end of the world".

At the Beauvais plant, Manon officially handed back the tractor’s keys to Richard Markwell, Vice President and Managing Director Massey Ferguson Europe, Africa and Middle-East, who had previously presented them to her on 29 July, 2014.

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“We are all so proud of our tractor and the incredible achievement of Manon and her Antarctica2 team,” Richard said.

The Massey MF5610 not only helped Manon to realise her dream. In taking her safely to the South Pole it also became the first wheeled tractor equipped with agricultural tyres, rather than tracks, to make it overland to the Antarctic.

The Antarctica2 expedition is so-named because it is the second expedition to the South Pole by a Massey Ferguson tractor. The first was undertaken by explorer Sir Edmund Hillary who successfully reached the Pole in 1958 with a fleet of specially adapted Ferguson TE20 tractors fitted with tracks instead of tyres.

Hillary had the distinction of leading the first mechanised expedition to the South Pole overland.

Over the 28 day journey the MF5610 required only a few running repairs and the engine clocked up an impressive 760 hours of operation, which is more than many farms would do in two years of normal work.

Speaking after the tractor completed its rountrip in December, Campbell Scott, Massey Ferguson Director Sales Engineering and Brand Development said, “We hope that the Antarctica2 expedition has served to highlight to a non-agricultural audience the way farmers are rising to the challenge of feeding the world. Modern farm equipment and appropriate technology can help make the most of the world’s cultivable land and create sustainable farm business for our long-term food security.”