Instagram Gathering for JCB’s Backhoe Loader Day

As revealed on the blog last week, JCB held a ‘backhoe loader days’ event last week at its World Headquarters in Staffordshire, which was largely aimed at high profile construction machinery Instagrammers, and we were fortunate enough to be invited along too.

The event was organised by Georgina Williams aka @jcb_diggergirl on Instagram, who has been tasked with further raising the profile of the venerable backhoe loader, especially to younger industry individuals.

I attended on the second day and was delighted to be joined by fellow 'Instagrammers' including, @life_behind_the_levers @grace.pqc @pquinnconstruction @neilchapmanplanthire10 @quarry_girl_uk  @brianodea91 and @murph_the_operator .

As my late father was a life-long JCB 3C operator, who loved his JCB’s, I always get an emotional feeling when I arrive at the visitor’s centre, no matter how many times I’ve been, and even more so when I take a meander through the Story of JCB museum upstairs. Having taken many photos in the past, this time I thought I would do some video footage instead.

Following a tour of part of the backhoe loader factory, lunch was served, after which we were all transported up to JCB’s Kevin Quarry for an afternoon of ‘stick time’ on a variety of examples of 3CX and 4CX models.

The star attraction on the day was Neil Chapman’s ‘all singing, all dancing’ 4CX complete with Engcon EC-Oil tiltrotator set up, which at the time of writing, is the current cover shot feature in Earthmovers Magazine.

Neil himself was on hand to offer advice on operating the machine and was joined by Rob Sprankling of Holt JCB his local dealership.

The other machines available were set up at various stations, where we had the chance to dig, backfill, trim up, and to try out a longer driving experience up a steep incline to get a feel of the torque available on these new models.

There was also a fun element on offer, with a tyre stacking challenge with another 4CX, which everyone enjoyed and which some took to another level by attempting to grab and stack paper cups, demonstrating the precision of the controls.

Photo: Talk about Little & Large! It was great to finally meet up with James Herring aka @life_behind_the_levers who we featured on the blog in October 2021. 

Here is a highlights video from our time at the quarry.

The penultimate highllight of the day for me, was seeing a surviving example of JCB's prototype 4CX Artic backhoe loader concept. This machine was first revealed to the public in 1988 at the old SED Show, which in those days was held at Whipsnade, however the machine never went into full production, as the company focused on the all wheel steer 4CX 4x4x4 model.

As ever, thanks to JCB, it was a great day all round and it was fantastic to meet so many friendly people from Instagram on the day.