So I haven't seen anything as cool as farmers' protests with their kilometer-long rows of tractors in a long time. Like hot motorcycle gangs, only more rubber, more engine power, even hotter. Seeing them should be scary, but I find it fascinating: I loved tractors when I was a kid.

However, I can't explain why at all.

I grew up in a town in North Rhine-Westphalia. I had no exposure to agriculture. What a field is to a country boy, a highway intersection is to me. I don't even have a driver's license and I don't know anything about displacement, number of cylinders and diesel engines. Why do I still love tractors?

“No, just tires”

To explore my childhood love of tractors, I go to the tractor playground in Eschborn, near Frankfurt. Maybe some kid will explain to me what's so cute about PS monsters. Next to the TÜV-tested red and blue play equipment, the worn tractor stands out wonderfully: There is also red and blue, but the tin is worn, the tractor is half sunk into the ground, and the scratched plaque reads: Year of construction 1960.

It's minus two degrees, so there's almost nothing going on here. But nine-year-old Mohammed is here playing with his two siblings. What does he like so much about tractors? “Big tires.” Something else? Engine? High seat? “No, just the tires.” For now, I'll have to settle for this answer.

Maybe André Sattler can help me. He is a salesman for agricultural machinery at Seippel Landmaschinen GmbH. He may know something about the emotional needs of farmers when buying tractors. In Groß-Umstadt, where the hospice association and the vehicle registration office share a building, there is a farm with over 150 tractors. However, most of them are smaller models that do not want to generate love. Does he have something bigger? Sattler nods and disappears around the corner for a moment.

Like an extension of my limbs

I hear his return long before I see it. When Sattler roars around the corner in a bright red Case IH Optum AFS Connect, I almost jump for joy. Sattler climbs down the ladder, grins and says, “The bigger the better!” A real monster, all four tires above me. High-tech device with touch screen, Bluetooth radio and cooler for food and drinks. The hood is covered with a translucent metal mesh through which you can see inside the machine.

The tractor has a three-centimeter-thick blanket of snow, even though it hasn't snowed here in the last few weeks. “It's snow from Austria, the tractor arrived fresh last night,” says Sattler. This vehicle may already mean the end of farmers demonstrating on tractors: “It has an RTK control system and it can drive completely by itself. At least if you let him. Due to legal requirements, the machine must always be manned in Germany. But this is already common practice in the US,” says Sattler.

I climb the ladder and sit on the seat. It's amazingly comfortable, the seat almost hugs my back. The controls are so ergonomic they feel like extensions of my limbs. “It is not uncommon for a farmer to sit in a tractor for 12-16 hours, so comfort is important. Many customers even put their shoes on a piece of cardboard in the cabin and travel in socks,” says Sattler. My head is in a glass cabin at a height of about 3.5 meters. This means that even the roof of the Mercedes Sprinter is exactly level with my butt.