Old and New Liebherr’s #ThrowbackThursday

Came across these cracking images on the Liebherr Construction Facebook page last week, and just had to share them with the Digger Man Blog masses!

Those of us of a certain age, will clearly remember the old Liebherr R 901 and similar excavators from that era. The one in these photos was built in 1968, and has been rescued from a scrap yard, and fully restored to a fresh off the factory floor standard.

I recall as a 12–13-year-old kid, spending time on a Liebherr R 911 example on the M27 motorway project, where I used to go to work with my late father, that one was on hire from long gone plant hire business Edarn Plant, I remember always forgetting to use the slew brake, that was on a foot pedal, took a little bit of getting used to that!

Photo: Nick Drew Digger Man Blog archives 1973/4.

At the other end of the scale is a new R 978 SME (Mass Excavation Spec) machine which competes in the 80-tonne class, a real beast of a machine straight out of Liebherr-Mietpartner GmbH’s own rental fleet.

As Liebherr commented, these machines are 55 years and 70 tonnes apart – what a sight!

What are our older readers/followers memories of the old school Liebherr hydraulic excavators?

Let's take a look back at the Liebherr story in this fascinating video from last year.