Cugini Randi was a small Italian manufacturer of agricultural machinery in the 1940s–1980s.
History
Cugini Randi was formed at the end of the Second World War, presumably in 1947. Its headquarters were in Bagnacavallo in the province of Ravenna. The factory was founded by brothers Umberto and Dardano Randi, along with his cousin Ettore Randi. They started the business repairing machines, then building, with recycled materials, circular saws sold to some local carpenters and used by them until the end of the 1990s (nearly 40 years of service). Subsequently, the factory began to transform American and English military tracked motor vehicles, left by the Allies after the end of the war, in tracked agriculture tractors. They adapted petrol 8 cylinder engines in order to operate with agricultural oil. Umberto, an expert engineer trained in Autocentro Militare in Bologna, invented, for this purpose, an oil agriculture vaporizer, using war materials remnants (shells of large caliber bullets and a series of copper tubes). In light of the success of the early fifties, the company began to produce real wheeled tractors of medium size (models R14 - R50), and made almost all the pieces needed for their construction. At the same time, Cugini Randi began to produce their first motocultivator as well as some machines such as the "Grillo" and the tiller R5. At the end of the 50s, Umberto died. Dardano and Ettore continued to work in the agriculture sector, diversifying the production. They started building steering boxes for different types of vehicles (construction machinery, etc.), they abandoned the production of medium-sized tractors and focused the production in tiller, motocultivators and small 4-wheel drive tractors.
During the maximum production years (1970s and 1980s), the Cugini Randi had a decent network of representatives in Italy and a presence in Portugal, Greece and Belgium. Due to a very strong competition (with much greater production capacity), professional machines of the type produced drop in demand, and a lack of a generational change, around the mid-80s, Cugini Randi company gradually ceased the activities, leaving the management of spare parts to its employees.