Priestman mini memories: (Blog Post Re-Visited)

by Nick Drew | Wed 10 Oct 2018

Priestman mini memories: (Blog Post Re-Visited)

Famous and now long gone British excavator manufacturer Priestman Brothers of Hull briefly entered the mini excavator market in 1981. I was loaned some photos of these rare machines by Steve Shevill, of Kent Based Six Mile Excavators.

When Steve’s father, Colin Shevill’s parents sold their farm back in 1958, they decided to buy a property called Six Mile, which was to eventually expand to become Six Mile Garage. There was a lot of work to be done to get the premises fit for purpose, so Mr Shevill senior decided to purchase a few machines to do the work in-house. From that day on he was bitten by the groundworks and plant hire bug. In 1981, whilst visiting the SED show at Hatfield, Mr Shevill spotted a new mini excavator that was being demonstrated by Priestman, and seeing the potential for the fledgling machines, he bought one there and then!

These Priestman Mini Mustangs were in fact early Takeuchi models, which were imported from Japan and re-badged in the UK. At the time, three models were available, the 1.0 tonne class MM10, as seen above, the 2.0 tonne class MM20 and the 3.25 tonne class MM35. The machines were very well received by end users, and Mr Shevill ordered more models shortly after taking delivery of his first machine. Here we see his first machine, which was affectionately known as the “Mighty Midget”, climbing out of a house basement excavation.

Six Mile Excavators later went on to own examples of the larger MM35 models too. It’s interesting to note that these larger machines featured the double lift rams, which have remained a feature on the larger Takeuchi machines that we see today, like the TB285 and TB1140 models. One of their machines sporting the more familiar steel tracks back then, is seen here showing self-lifting abilities.

Sadly following the collapse of Priestman’s parent company the Acrow group in 1984, this manufacturing arrangement with Takeuchi came to an end. Despite being taken over by the Sanderson Group in 1985, the business was on the slippery slope to failure, and in 1990 it ceased trading. Six Mile Excavators also ran one of the 12 tonne class Mustang 108S models, examples of which I operated on Wimpey’s in the early 1980’s. It’s seen here in the garage, where it appears to have had a re-spray.

Steve Shevill has a host of photos to share with us on the Digger Man Blog over the coming months, including material featuring his latest mount, the Liebherr 309 wheeled excavator, which is a fine looking piece of kit, and is fully equipped with an Engcon tiltrotator.

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