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Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Mon 04 May 2015

Poclain memories revived again

A number of Digger Man Blog readers have contacted me asking for more photos from the Poclain display stand at Intermat last month, so I am happy to share a few more shots from the show.

The French enthusiast group The Poclain Foundation, which includes many ex-employees of the famous hydraulic excavator company, are doing some fine work in the preservation of these classic machines. Many members of this movement are contractors who at one time owned a lot of Poclain machines and are clearly very patriotic about the machines which were once built in their country and exported all over the world. Their devotion to preserving this home grown product is something we in the UK could learn a lot from in my opinion. The star attraction at this year’s event had to be the 75 tonne Poclain 400CK which is owned by French contractor Eric Moutot and proudly took centre stage at the display. The strange looking (by modern standards) TY45 sold by the bucket load for Poclain, following its launch in 1961 and continued to be a good selling machine right through the 1960’s early 70’s. This fine example was displayed with a clamshell grab which was a popular option for these models back in the day. I’m confident that the control arrangement and overall cab comfort levels would come as a massive shock for today’s generation of machine operators. No servo controls, air-con, radio or Bluetooth functionality in this cab! The new style Poclain’s were launched in 1974 with the 60 model on tracks being very popular here in the UK over the following years. Its wheeled variant was the 60P of which a fine restored example was displayed on the stand. This machine was restored by Roland Guitton. Completing the display was the Poclain 90CKB, heavy duty undercarrige model which was in face shovel configuration. This exhibition along with hordes of archive photos, company history and memorabilia was a must see for any classic plant enthusiast visiting Intermat. I personally could have spent hours on the stand if only I was capable of speaking French.  

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