Jim Davies Hymac Memories

by Nick Drew | Thu 08 Sep 2016

Jim Davies Hymac Memories

Readers may recall my recent visit to South Wales where I was invited to see Jim and Dean Davies stunning restoration of a Hymac 580C, well Dean has kindly sent in some archive photos showing a small selection of some of the Hymac’s his father and him once ran.

Starting off with this classic black and white photo which see’s Jim sat in the seat of a Hymac 580B model while working on the Heads of the Valley job in 1970. The machine features the old „navvy“ style flat track pads and the sliding cab door which where fitted back in those days.

Jim also worked on the larger Hymac 1080 models and an example of which is seen here, when he was working in West Bromwich in the Midlands cutting out for concrete up stand for a flyover.

It was around 1991 that the then owners of Hymac the Brown Group went out of business, however the Hymac company was then taken over by Irish plant dealer John Kennedy. The following year they launched what many hoped would be the saviour of the famous British brand with the introduction of the Synchron 1301 and 1501 models. Jim purchased one of the 15 tonne class offerings in 1992 as seen here on its delivery day.

The machines were fitted with Linde’s Synchron load sensing hydraulic systems which were quality for the time. My understanding was that although not many were built they had finally got it right with these models, but according to Jim and Dean they had a few problems with it and they only kept it until 1993 when it was moved on. As it happened the writing was already on the wall for Hymac and they finally ceased trading as a manufacturer in 1993.

It really was a shame to see the demise of this once great British manufacturer especially as the Synchron models really looked the part. We thank Jim and Dean Davies for sharing these old photos with us here on the blog.

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