Today, 11 Marzo 2022, Antonio Carraro, President of Antonio Carraro spa has sadly passed away

Talking about Antonio Carraro’s life is the same as talking about the company that bears his name. Out of "Giovanni Carraro", founded in 1910, a Padova manufacturer of sowers, tractors and diesel engines, came two separate companies, founded in 1960: Antonio Carraro di Giovanni (with Antonio, sister Bianca and father Giovanni) and Carraro spa (with Oscar, Mario, Francesco and Clara, Giovanni’s other children). The two branches of the Carraro family each followed a different business vision: Antonio specialised in compact tractors with equal sized wheels for specialised agriculture whilst Mario and Carraro spa specialised in large scale tractor axels and automotive components.

Antonio Carraro’s Business history

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After the split of Giovanni Carraro, in 1960, Antonio Carraro began its production of compact tractors for specialised agriculture, under the rotating four-horse brand, a Persian symbol of fertility and strength dating back to the 1600s. From the beginning one success led to another: from 1970 they broke away from all competitors and the Antonio Carraro brand became a market leader in the compact tractor sector.

In 1973 Antonio Carraro founded “Centre for Study and Research”, one of the first in the Italian metalmechanical sector, where a team of technicians were dedicated exclusively to the research into innovative vehicles for agriculture, in collaboration with universities in Padova, Bologna, Berlin, Humboldt and Sidney.

From 2000 the company’s first expansion plan began with the construction of new warehouses in Campodarsego along with the reorganisation of all production departments, in line with Porsche Consulting from Stuttgart. The training, over 3 years, brought about fundamental change in the company, which today finds itself at the head of the mechanised agricultural companies due to the maximum technology applied to its production process and the organization in accordance with the Japanese philosophy “Kaizen” which calls for continual small steps towards improvement.

On narrow rowed crops and in orchards, on mountainsides, in greenhouses, in pastures and forests, in public and private green area maintenance, on winter roadways, on building sites, in the maintenance of sports grounds, an Antonio Carraro tractor can make all the difference in terms of yield and operative wellbeing.

For many years now in Italy the Antonio Carraro brand has had the most new registrations in the compact tractor segment. It is amongst the 7 top brands in the world.

Antonio Carraro, through his story, brought about the company’s growth and subsequent production activity leading to employment in the mechanical sector. Essentially, the vehicles created by him have given a strong boost to the agricultural economy in the Mediterranean Basin and the mountains in the Alpeadria area (Northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Eastern Europe), southern Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal as well as Germany, France and all of Europe. Since the 60s hundreds of dealers for our tractors have sprung up along with many AC outlets.

Active in the company, up until he passed away, Antonio Carraro constantly followed the work of the Research and Development Department, where he spent his days. Easy-going and generous by nature, he always contributed vigorously to company life, featuring in the institutional documents and in the publicity adverts (the latest with Albano Carrisi, friend and loyal customer). 

In the November the latest film came out commemorating the company’s 110 years “Constance and Leaps” by the Padova director Federico Massa, where he starred as himself in the role of pioneer in the tractor company where he spent his life loving and developing the company that today has 500 employees, 5 subsidiaries (Spain, USA, Turkey, Chile, France), 650 dealers and sales outlets throughout the world.

Today, the Antonio Carraro brand of the 4 rotating horses, a symbol of high quality, is considered the “Ferrari” of all tractors.

AC Personality

Reserved by nature and quite shy, Antonio Carraro, right from childhood was fascinated by mechanics as well as art and classical music. Even if invited to take on institutional roles because of his prestige and culture, he never accepted any position outside of his company, believing it to be incompatible with his industrial activity. The only exception to this life philosophy came on the occasion of the various presentations of the last book written by Piero Buscaroli entitled “Beethoven”, from 2005, in which the music critic musicale (a great friend of Antonio Carraro) invited him as an expert in Beethoven to be a commentator. Since the 60s he was the President of Antonio Carraro spa, and actively involved in the activities of the company’s Research and Development (R&D) Department.

AC philosophy of Life

Below is one of the last interviews with Antonio Carraro, not as an industrialist but rather as an art enthusiast and a lover of “his” city, Padova.

«My main characteristic? An obsession with aesthetics and quality.»
Antonio Carraro, Presidente Antonio Carraro spa, talks about himself…

“I am proud that my company stands on the same manufacturing site as my father’s, that dates back to 1910. Our family of blacksmiths’, in truth, began in 1875, the year that ownership of the land where we are now was bought by the Carraro family.

As a child I worked with my father Giovanni and my siblings. Already at 13, I used to go to agricultural machinery markets in Northern Italy, accompanied on a motorbike by Oscar, my eldest brother. Since then, many things have happened. Today I am proud to say that my company is the top brand in Italy for new registrations in the compact tractor sector and eighth in the world, maybe seventh, in the world. During my business activity, I never thought about earning money for its own sake, but rather I wanted to build up my company and to invent each time a new tractor that was more beautiful, more complete, more efficient and more comfortable than the previous model. This is why I like to say that we produce “the most beautiful tractor in the world”. Every time we start from the assumption that we want to move forward by constantly improving ourselves. By this, I mean yself and all of my staff, not only in the workshop but all the workers in my company who with their commitment and skill, each and everyone of them, can contribute to the improvement of our company and its products.

THE AC FAMILY

The greatest satisfaction of my life however does not come from my work but from my marriage to Luciana and the birth of my children. I met Luciana when she was really young. My father had employed her as an interpreter because she can speak Italian, English and Arabic, being born in Alessandria in Egypt and having attended an international French school. My push towards improvement always came from my family, every one of whom participates in their own way and according to their talents. My children say I am easy-going, even if sometimes a little severe. It’s true: when we talk about mechanics, music or art, I get really excited. Politics doesn’t interest me at all. I have often been invited to actively participate in political life but I have always declined the invitations as I believe it to be incompatible with my business activity. 

After family and tractors, I dedicate all my time to cultivating my interior life by reading, listening to music or visiting places of art, museums but especially churches.

I love Padova, my city, beautiful and full of art. Think about Giotto, Mantegna, Sansovino, Veronese, Briosco and Donatello. It’s unfortunate that some reconstructions, after the bombardments in the Second World War, were not done very well. I am referring to Corso Milano, for example: I can remember it before the war. It used to be a wonderful street in the city but today it is a somewhat unharmonious combination without any design aim. Or Piazza Spalato (ex Piazza Insurrezione): it should have been the crossroads of all the streets around Padova. It didn’t work out that way. The wild design logic in the economic boom took first place. 

Now, at my age, I have accepted and understand this situation: controversy is pointless. I have become more philosophical: what is done is done. Fortunately, I have many successes especially in my industrial activity. My greatest success, for example, is the satisfaction of our customers, as well as the special ones like Al Bano Carrisi, Gianni Morandi, the singer Sting, Mogol, or the prestigious wine producers such as Moët Chandon, Cà Del Bosco, Voerzio (Barolo) and Antinori.

If I have to admit to an obsession, it is for the product. I have always been convinced that in the creation of a good like a tractor, nothing should be left to chance because it is the obsessive attention to detail that determines the excellence of the end result. My dream has always been the same: to build up my company by continuing to produce my Made in Italy, my tractors, in my own country. The recession over these years influences us of course but I am an optimist. This is a characteristic that unites art enthusiasts because our love for beautiful things and works of art improves and softens the interior life of every human being. Living in Padova is a double fortune because Padova is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. There is the amazing Prato della Valle or the Cappella degli Scrovegni, an extraordinary place which enchants with the beauty of Giotto’s paintings. There are the amazing sculptures that Donatello left us after his 11-year stay in Padova. I believe Donatello to be an absolute genius: as well as being an enormous talent as a sculptor he was also an architectural genius in his ability to determine the perfect coordinates where he could place his works of art. Like in the case of the monument to Erasmo da Narni known commonly as Gattamelata that stands in front of Saint Anthony’s Cathedral, with its impressive stature. An equestrian monument renders an originally humble space majestic and solemn as an invitation to the faithful to the Francescan church of 1238, later reconstructed into the Saint Anthony Sanctuary that we admire today.”