I'm Neil from Messick's here with all the info on the new Kubota 2024 models. Hang on here with me today. I'm going to talk through the couple of new pieces that are coming out for this model year and also at the end take you on a brief tour of Kubota's national distribution facilities out in Kansas.
Kubota's largest excavator, the KX-080, is getting the Series 5 upgrades that we've already seen in some other models now. This is going to add a seven-inch LCD screen that gives you a bunch of features, a rearview camera, the ability to do a keyless start with a password. You can do your hydraulic settings in the monitor, set up work light delays, brings a lot of nice features to that screen. You can see a deep dive of that over in our KX-057 video. This new model is going to have a slightly larger cab. The air conditioning is reworked to give a little bit better circulation, and the seat now is air ride as standard equipment. It no longer has to be dealer-installed.
2024 will have a refresh to the RTV-900 and RTV-1120. Those two models are now getting rolled into one, and they're going to be referred to as the RTV-X going forward. The RTV series first came out back in 2003, then got a pretty big refresh in 2014, and it has been eight years now since there's been any significant changes to this model. Frankly, it hasn't needed it in terms of the work utility vehicles. These things are still pretty unmatched, but there are a number of changes here that they're making to the machine. There is an update happening in the transmission in order to make ranges easier to shift.
That has always been the biggest complaint that we've had with RTVs for their entire product run because it is a hydrostatic transmission, just like your tractors, moving from high to low range that sometimes can be a little tough. There's some updates inside of the transmission to make that easier to shift. We did have a chance to run it around. I would say the driving dynamics are still the same as what they always have been. There's a little bit of hold back there in the engine when you take your foot off the pedal.
Now, since the 900 and the 1120 are getting rolled together, the engine that was used in the 900 is no longer going to be around. All diesel RTVs will have overall more horsepower than what that entry-level model had before. Now, they've tuned the speed back down again in order to give the machine a little bit more torque. It's not faster than it was before, but it should be a little bit more performant, say a little bit more get up and go because it's got just a little bit more horsepower with a little bit lower gearing.
The design is updated. You'll see some changes here. The hood looks a little bit more aggressive. There's a new set of headlights on the front that have high and low beams in them. I'm told the headlights are actually effective. Oftentimes, the headlights on these kinds of things can be a bit of a joke, but these are apparently quite bright. You'll notice the tires here in the photo. This is the new worksite tire. That's the heavy-duty tire that we put on most all of these machines. A lot of testing was done in order to have a heavy, durable tire that's easier on turf but still tractive. They went to great lengths to explain it.
This wasn't just pulling a tire off of a shelf. This one has actually been tested quite thoroughly on this machine. A new feature that we haven't been before is the ProConvert bed. You'll notice the sides and the back of the bed can now be folded down and removed so that you can have a flat bed on the back of the machine, or you can fold them back up again if you're going to carry loose materials and stuff in the back. It might be handy for somebody, say, throwing a round bale or something on the back. If you'd like to be able to have that flat bed in order to move large material, you can do it. This is an option.
It's not going to be on every one of them. You're going to see here with these sides folded down, the direction that we were given is that they are intended to be removed. There's nothing that stops you from driving around with them folded down, but they're not meant to be used that way. They're going to flop around. You're going to notice the structure of these machines is not changing at all. All of the existing accessories that we have today for roofs and windshields and lights and mud flaps and CV guards and all that stuff, it all still fits the machine. The chassis of it isn't really changing at all to maintain compatibility with all of that stuff, but this is probably the biggest refresh the RTV has gotten in years.
There is a lot of shared engineering across the RTV family, but it is worth noting that these changes are only coming out on the open station single row version for this year. I suspect for the next model year, you're probably going to see updates happen on the air conditioned cab, on the two row version, on the truck bed version, but for this model year, the changes will be on the single seat open station models only.
Next up is the RTV-X1130. We usually get some advanced notice of what's going to be coming out at these shows. When I heard they were taking today's RTV-1140, the two seater RTV, and simply adding a flat bed to it, I was a little underwhelmed, but man, when we got out and started looking at some of the possibilities of what this could do, I think it was pretty exciting to all of us. This is, as I said, the same machine as what today's 1140 is, just swapping out that second row for this larger bed, but the bed's got some interesting abilities.
It still is going to dump, but it has sides and a back that can be removed, so you can have it as a bed that can be contained, or it can be totally flat. It also has the ability to have a extension put onto the back tailgate, and mounting points for a winch up in the top of the bed, in order to be able to pull stuff up into it. That's cool. That gives a new application, a new use to these kinds of RTVs that we haven't seen before. If you look closely here, they've got some nice accessories for this as well. There's little LED lights that can be put up in the top of the bed, and then also waterproof storage containers that go down to where your feet would have been in the old 1140. Pretty cool, actually.
Like I said, maybe best to show for me. This is the one thing that I was thinking I wasn't going to be all that impressed by, but the more we walked around, the more we looked at it, the more applications and excitement that we had for this new model. It is really easy walking around Kubota Connect to miss little things. One of the things I thought was a standout that was worth mentioning was that Curtis is now offering an air conditioner unit for the RTV1140. The current machine, if you go and you put a cab on it, there's no way to get air in there other than propping some windows open, and it's a bit driving around in a sweaty hot box. The addition of an air conditioner unit for this is significant.
It will open this machine up to new customers. Next up is the new LX2620. You got to stick with me here for a little bit because this one is a bit of a mouthful. In the last model year, we would have gotten two new tractors, the LX3520 and LX4020. We recently released full videos on those two tractors as they are just now starting to ship. This is an upgrade now for an LX2620 as well, and that replaces the prior LX2610. You would assume that this is just a 26 horsepower version of the 35 and 40 horsepower tractors, but be very clear, it is not. There is some carryover from the LX2610 series in the front axles and in the loader.
It uses a narrower front axle and the old model loader from the LX2610 on this LX2620 tractor. It is physically different than what's used on the 35 and 40 horsepower versions. There's also a small difference in the transmission housings at the back of the tractor. This gets an upgraded HST and the features and everything that we've found in the 35 and 40 horsepower tractor, but the housings themselves are the same housings. There is a change to the hydraulic pump, the HST pump that runs the transmission that does take care of some of the whine that we had in the older model, but it is not physically the same rear end that you had in the larger machine.
That draws a little bit more distinction between the 26 horse and the 35 horse model. There is a $6,700 price increase between those two, and you can see a little bit what Kubota was going after here in that price increase. 2620 is a tractor that we sell into a lower price point market, and it ultimately is going to be a little bit less capable than what it's 35 and 40 horse versions are going to be. Nice upgrade to this tractor, picking up all of those 20 series features, all the updated styling. It's a great machine. I own the 33 horse version of this family tractor, but notice the difference.
If we were all sitting here and expecting that 35 horse and 40 horse model just to come out in 26 horsepower, that is not what happened here. There's a couple of important differences. Couple new things over at the Lampride booth. One thing that we probably just don't appreciate is the sheer size of the Lampride catalog. I'm not aware of any attachment company at this point that offers nearly as much stuff as what Kubota's Lampride division does. The catalog just keeps getting bigger. We've got two new grapples now. Previously Lampride only offered a root rake style grapple. Now they have a grapple that's got a floor to it.
These are usually a little bit nicer if you're going to be lifting and carrying logs. Things tend not to slip out the bottom quite as easily. There's a 10 series and a 15 series. They're going to fit everything from the small compacts up to the bigger utility tractors. We also have an FSP 300 salt spreader. These FSP spreaders have been around for a long time, but their cones were pretty large for a subcompact tractor. This is now a BX-sized FSP spreader. The same undercarriage as all the other ones, but a cone that's more suited to the small tractor. They're also adding a flail mower on the end of their boom mower, a flail mower for the excavators, and a rotary mower to go on the excavators as well.
The construction side of the municipal heavy-duty side of Lampride continues to get a little bit bigger. Overall, I'm getting Lampride Neil's Best of Show Award. Their displays here are awesome. I'd love to be able to grab what they're doing here with the snow and stuff and use it in our own showroom. They did an awesome job showing their attachments off. After all of our meetings were over, we had the opportunity to tour two million-square-foot warehouses. One for parts, one for Whole Goods that sits side by side. This is located in the town of Edgerton, Kansas, about 45 minutes out of the center of Kansas City.
We're going to walk here through these two buildings and show you where all of your tractors and parts come from. Our first million square foot building here is the Whole Goods distribution building. If you're looking at these wide shots, believe it or not, this is only half the building. The amount of machinery here that you see in these photos is just staggering. It only sits here for a matter of days before it's turned around and sent back out to the dealers. The machinery here is going to come in one side of the building. It's then staged and stored here in the middle before being picked and lined up into bays, then to be pushed into a tractor-trailer truck and taken out and delivered.
This warehouse feeds out, if I remember correctly, a lot of the equipment that's manufactured in Japan will come into here and that is fed out to most of the dealer network. There's also dealers in the Midwest states that's going to take all of their distribution out of here. You'll see maybe some BXs and ZDs, things that come out of KMA and KIE in Georgia, also coming over here. For a dealership like us in Pennsylvania, we get a lot of our construction equipment out of this facility. A lot of our other deliveries are going to come out of Ohio for snow equipment or Georgia for things from KMA or KIE. Crazy amount of stuff here in these photos, but ultimately a fraction of what goes in and out of these buildings.
At the end of that whole goods building, there is a small assembly line. This is going to take the equipment that comes over from Japan and install the proper set of tires on them here for the US. They come over with a small pair of shipping wheels on them. This facility here is going to put the proper tires on that tractor. For some equipment, it's going to do some amount of assembly. There's cases where we at the dealership level have the choice of getting our equipment crated or getting it set up. The pieces that are getting set up here are going down this line and having loaders, potentially in cases backhoes and some like final work done.
This is similar to assembly to what happens at the dealership level. This is not any like production that you're looking at here. It's simply that final prep step for some equipment before it goes out to a dealership. Lastly, here in Kansas is the parts distribution facility. This is a second million square foot warehouse right beside the whole goods one that is doing the distribution for parts. These are some parts that are shipped out to dealerships, also parts that are fed out to the regional warehouses, and also some warehouses out in some supporting countries are all fulfilled out of this massive building. Those are the updates that we're going to see for 2024.
A little light in terms of really new stuff, a couple of expected improvements that we thought we were going to see, and a strategy really that I remain supportive of. I'd much rather see to take the time with the models that we've already got as we get over the supply chain hurdles that are still out there. Hopefully we're going to see a lot of new stuff rolling out in a couple of years here as some of that engineering that's happened here for the last three, four years finally gets out to market. If you're shopping for a piece of equipment that we can help or if you've got parts or service needs for a machine you've already got, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com.
