Caterpillar’s German Connection #Flashback Friday

A great feature I came across on the excellent French Technique TP Facebook group, once again inspired me to create a post on the Caterpillar/EDER era.

In the early 1980’s Caterpillar were looking to increase their range of hydraulic excavators. The smallest model in the Cat excavator range at that time was the 215, which was nudging the 17-tonnes mark, so smaller machines were needed to increase market share, especially in the lucrative 12-14 tonne class sector.

So, in 1984 an agreement was signed with German manufacturer EDER, to badge examples from their 800-Series excavators as Caterpillar. Five tracked models were produced consisting of the 205, 211, 211LC, 213, and 213LC, with four wheeled excavators to follow, 206, 212, 214 and 224 models.

I recall visiting Leverton’s the then Caterpillar dealers in Southampton when the Cat 205 first came out, I was trying to get going as an owner operator at the time and fancied one, unfortunately a financial deal could not be sorted, so it never happened on that occasion, but I had a spin in one and flet it was a nice machine at the time.

As mentioned on Technique TP, those first models were just simply EDER models painted in Cat yellow with Cat badges, but as the agreement rolled along there was more Cat input, with a change of cab styling to a much more modern shape, and followed by B-Series models with Caterpillar engines.

In 1996 I spent time on a Caterpillar 212BFT wheeled excavator during my time working for James King Plant in Northampton, a machine I enjoyed operating a lot for the year I was living in the area.

The agreement between the two manufacturers lasted until the early 1990’s, by which time a new agreement had already been signed with Mitsubishi in Japan and the eventual formation of Shin Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ltd. Japanese built E-Series models were launched in the interim period before the launch of the 300-Series.  

Checkout this video of a very nice example of a 1994 CAT 211 B LC that was in a dealers yard 5 years ago.