Steve Shevill's Entreprenad Live Highlights

For many of us leisure time involves, watching football, going out on a bike, popping down the pub for a pint, or in my case, getting back on the ice for a skate, but for Canterbury based Steve Shevill, it’s a visit to numerous European plant and machinery shows that help him to chillout, away from the pressures of running a business.

Steve’s most recent visits have taken him to Sweden, for the Entreprenad Live event, and to Belgium to attend Matexpo. In today’s post we are taking a look at some of the highlights from the Swedish show, which took place over 3 days in Göteborg Landvetter.

Steve has very kindly shared an enormous batch of photos from both events, and although we can’t use them all, hopefully we can bring you a flavour of the events. One thing I always admire about the shows in Europe, is that they are virtually always held on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday, this means that the Saturday promotes itself as a family day, and enables those that are working out in the real world, can attend the show on the weekend, which can only be a good thing for promoting the industry to the younger generation, its something that show promoters in the UK could seriously learn from.

Steve’s family business Six Mile Excavators have had a long association with wheeled excavators, so when in Sweden, the obvious first choice for a look around would have to be the SWECON stand, the main dealers for Volvo Construction Equipment, where he discovered a nice example of the EWR150E c/w Steelwrist tiltrotator.

On the Steelwrist stand itself Steve spotted a Caterpillar 305 with tiltrotator and sporting a Steelwrist designed vibratory compaction plate attachment.

Steve’s focus on wheeled excavators continued on the Liebherr Construction Equipment stand, where he discovered a nice looking 914 Compact model fitted with a TAB boom and Rototilt tiltrotator, this example was also fitted with dual dozer blade set up to the front and rear. Steve himself is a long standing Liebherr customer, so he would be very familiar with these machines.

Another outstanding looking wheeled excavator was discovered on the Wacker Neuson stand in the form of this EW100, with TAB boom and Rototilt R3 tiltrotator, this one has been factory painted in an all-white livery.

EMS who are a Takeuchi dealer in Sweden displayed the new TB370W baby rubber duck that we featured on the blog earlier this week, once again sporting a TAB boom and a Steelwrist X07 tiltrotator. The weather was proving to be well suited to ducks as the rain was pretty persistent!

Steve is a big fan of excavator attachments, and is always on the lookout for tools that can make himself more productive and efficient, as we know, a machine is only as good as the work tool on the end of the dipper. Sweden is a great place for discovering some of the finest buckets and attachments available, so a stop by the EMA stand was essential.

No Swedish show would be complete without an amazing HUDDIG multi-purpose backhoe loader/tool carrier, in this instance a 1370 model which one would assume would be specced for a specialist utilities contractor with a Palfinger crane mount on the front end and cable reel on the back.

This beautiful example of the Komatsu PW168 immediately brought back memories of the late great Ollie Kitchin, who is remembered fondly for his blue rubber duck, as well as being a great guy.

And finally in this batch of photos a stop by the Zeppelin Cat stand where Steve discovered a superb Cat D6XE dozer in the limited edition Centennial grey paintwork. I always though PON were the Cat dealers in Sweden, at least on my previous visits to trade shows they always were, maybe there has been some dealership changes.

We thank Steve for sharing his images with us, and look forward to bringing another batch in due course.