JCB’s Forgotten Dumper

I was fascinated to come across Ollie Gunns latest video where he discussed the demise of JCB’s Hi-Viz 7-tonne dumper, which in all honesty, I had completely forgotten about.

I was present at JCB World Headquarters for a new mini excavator launch event in 2017, when as they so often do, they revealed a prototype version of the Hi-Viz 7FT which, on the front end was radically different from anything we had ever seen on a forward tipping dumper before.

As Ollie says in the video below JCB have always historically been a very innovative manufacturer who are always looking for better ways of doing things, such as the 520 Loadall telescopic handler in 1977 for instance, Powerslide booms on excavators, the Hydradig, and most recently the Dual Drive backhoe loader concept.

Not everything works out though and sadly it appears that the Hi-Viz dumper concept was not embraced by customers. In 2018 I did visit one of the leading trailblazers for fully cabbed dumpers Tonic Construction who had at least one Hi-Viz 7FT on the fleet, they may even still be running them, or they might have been traded in by now.

It would be interesting to know how many are out there, and where they are lurking around the country.

I’m pretty sure the next dumper innovation we see from JCB will be some form of 2-way view drive concept in keeping with other mainstream site dumper manufacturers, that’s a sector that Wacker Neuson have dominated for many years now with their Dual View (DV) range.

Anyway, watch and listen to Ollie’s views on the topic, it’s an insightful piece, enjoy.