by Nick Drew | Mon 29 Dec 2014
Rusting Japanese dozers spotted in China
During a recent trip to China, the UK based man behind the design of LiuGong’s new H series wheeled loaders, Gary Major, was out and about snapping a few shots of classic plant and has kindly shared these old dozer photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.
These old Komatsu machines are currently lying abandoned on an area of wasteland next to the site where LiuGong are building a brand new R&D centre, an addition to the company’s impressive Liuzhou headquarters in China. The new centre is expected to open in the spring of 2015 and will be the base for around 700-800 engineers and support staff. But it was these old dozers that caught Gary’s eye during his visit.
This rusting line-up includes a number of late 1970’s vintage Komatsu D80-A models which were powered by Komatsu’s own 6 cylinder engines, which offered a power output rating of 180hp/134.2kw.
At the far right end of the line-up we see a slightly more modern machine featuring an air conditioned cab, but this machine appears to have Chinese writing where the Komatsu name would usually be, which ponders the question, could this be a Chinese copy of a Komatsu?
Great to see these old girls, which in all fairness for their age are not in bad condition, at least cosmetically. We thank Gary for sharing them with us here on the Digger Man Blog.