At the end of the 2000s, the first rota­ting forest mac­hine cabins were launc­hed on the forest mac­hine mar­ket. Ponsse also deci­ded to res­pond to the chal­lenge, alt­hough expe­rienced users of PONSSE forest mac­hi­nes were a little scep­tical about the idea.

Patsi, the first concep­tual pro­to­type, was comple­ted in 2011. The idea for the har­ves­ter crane came from Ponsse’s first PAZ forest trac­tor, in which the loa­der was on the roof of the machine’s cabin. “A crane on the roof, that’s an opti­mal place – the boom is never in the line of sight,” thought Scorpion’s princi­pal desig­ner Pentti Huk­ka­nen.

The name of the pro­to­type was also bor­rowed from the first­born of the forest mac­hine family. It was an excel­lent wor­king name for the new mac­hine, because when tal­king about Patsi, the name was con­ve­niently con­fused with PAZ and the sec­ret of the
mac­hine being desig­ned was safe.

New design with ope­ra­tor ergo­no­mics in mind

Scor­pion was a comple­tely new model and from a comple­tely dif­fe­rent world than Ponsse’s pre­vious models, also in terms of design. Of the machine’s tech­nical solu­tions, 80 per cent were comple­tely new. Einari Vidgrén wan­ted the new mac­hine to make Ponsse stand out from its com­pe­ti­tors.

“Wit­hout Einari’s strong sup­port, the new model would never have been made,“
Huk­ka­nen said. Einari had firm belief in the machine’s success, alt­hough he was not there to see it.

In autumn 2011, the tes­ting of the new mac­hine model star­ted in Mäkelä, near Einari’s home estate. Even though the new type of a mac­hine took its time to get used to, it felt good to test dri­vers from the start. Ope­ra­tor ergo­no­mics and coping played an impor­tant role in the design of the mac­hine from the very begin­ning.

During 2012 and 2013, Scor­pion was tes­ted by cus­to­mers, and based on cus­to­mer feed­back, the new num­ber one of forest mac­hi­nes was fina­li­sed. PONSSE Scor­pion was launc­hed to the public on 5 June 2013 at 1 pm at the Elmia Wood trade fair in
Jön­kö­ping in Swe­den.

The most popu­lar har­ves­ter

Pro­duc­tion requi­red major invest­ments, as Scor­pion was a pro­duct like no other. The mac­hine ente­red serial pro­duc­tion during the first half of 2014. All mac­hi­nes plan­ned to be manu­fac­tu­red during 2014 had already been sold by the end of 2013, and by February 2014, Scor­pions were already in ope­ra­tion in 11 count­ries. In 2014, 111 Scor­pion har­ves­ters were manu­fac­tu­red. Scor­pion was also adop­ted by ini­tially scep­tical Fin­nish cus­to­mers, and the model has become Ponsse’s most popu­lar har­ves­ter.

The deve­lop­ment of Scor­pion has not stop­ped. At the same time as Scor­pion, Scor­pion King also ente­red pro­duc­tion to meet deman­ding forest mana­ge­ment needs. In 2021, Scor­pion was given a comple­tely rede­sig­ned cabin, and the pro­duct family grew with Scor­pion Giant, a power­ful and effec­tive har­ves­ter for large trees and dif­ficult ter­rain.

In addi­tion to its agi­lity and strength, the machine’s design is in a lea­gue of its own. You can often hear someone say “I never get tired of loo­king at the Scor­pion” at the fac­tory.

”Scor­pion has been deve­lo­ped and will be furt­her deve­lo­ped based on the feed­back from the users of the mac­hine. Its the popu­la­rity has been growing all the time and cur­rently there are already Scor­pions in about 30 dif­fe­rent count­ries.”

Jan Kau­ha­nen, Pro­duct Mana­ger, Har­ves­ters

Award-win­ning PONSSE Scor­pion

2013
VIVA AUTO­MA­TION! PRIZE for he deve­lop­ment of the sta­bi­li­sing and level­ling sys­tem

2014
QUA­LITY INNO­VA­TION OF THE YEAR AWARD – a new design that impro­ves ope­ra­tor ergo­no­mics and mac­hine efficiency
FEN­NIA PRIZE GRAND PRIX FOR INDUSTRIAL DESIGN – new design solu­tions and users’ cont­ri­bu­tion to R&D
FIRST PRIZE IN THE PRO­DUC­TIVE IDEA COM­PE­TI­TION – inno­va­tion and use of digi­ti­sa­tion

2015
SWE­DISH STEEL PRIZE – new design solu­tions that sig­ni­ficantly improve user ergo­no­mics, func­tio­na­lity, safety and pro­duc­ti­vity

2021
RED­DOT WIN­NER – best of the best, pres­ti­gious inter­na­tio­nal design award for PONSSE Scor­pion King
FEN­NIA PRIZE 22 –new PONSSE Scor­pion King — Cabin of the future
IF DESIGN AWARD 2022 – new PONSSE Scor­pion King cabin