by Nick Drew | Thu 29 Oct 2015
Colourful Poclains
Following the recent post on the great old British make of excavator Hymac, I have had a few requests for more classic photos and in particular about the French classics Poclain, so always happy to oblige with this selection from the archives.
My visit to the Case Customer Centre recently also inspired me to go searching for more old Poclain photos, as the whole area around Monthyon is steeped in Poclain history with the site once being a proving ground for the old company before it was taken over by Case. The HC300 seen here in face shovel configuration first appeared in 1968 it was offered in various weights with the maximum being 48 tonnes. The machine is loading a Euclid dumptruck in this shot.
Of course Poclain also offered one off conversion models of their machines like in this photo which also shows a HC300 but fitted with a long reach boom and dipper mounted on a barge for dredging works.
In 1972 Poclain launched a raft of new machines including the MC100 excavator, this machine looks to have been engaged in the dredging of a pond outside a chateau somewhere in France.
The sister machine to the MC100 was the MC200 from the same early 1970’s era, the machine is seen here loading a French Berliet tipper.
The big daddy of all Poclains was the massive EC1000, powered by three GM engines and able to carry buckets up to 8.7m3 the machine was the largest excavator ever built in those days. This machine has featured many times on the Digger Man Blog over the years.
Finally in this batch a scan of an original Poclain brochure featuring a cover shot of the 75P wheeled excavator. I remember receiving a copy of this brochure and many more from the marketing department of Poclain when I was a youngster. If memory serves me right they were based in Hook, Hants at the time, great days indeed!
Look out for more classic photos and scans in future post’s here on the Digger Man Blog.