Steve Shevill’s MATEXPO Highlights

So far this week on the blog, we have been in Newark, for Plantworx, Hyvinkää in Finland, and we are off to Belgium, to take a look at some of the highlights from Steve Shevill’s visit to the MATEXPO show.

As mentioned in a previous post, Steve loves nothing more than to visit the overseas construction machinery shows, where he is always on the lookout for machines and attachments that could potentially make his business more efficient and productive.

Quite literally days after his visit to Sweden for the Entreprenad Live event, Steve was hopping on the shuttle and making the drive into Belgium for the MATEXPO show. Steve says there is something about the shows abroad, they are well attended and everyone visiting is super excited to look at the latest products on offer.

Steves first port of call was to the stand of Caterpillar dealer Bergerat Monnoyeur where amongst many other machines, he caught sight of the new Cat 319 Compact Radius hydraulic excavator, one of the first sold into the region, featuring a TAB boom, Rototilt tiltrotator and rubber street pads, what a cracking machine it looks too!

Another interesting find was this Mecalac 8MCR which was fitted with a quirky long reach 2/3 piece boom, designed for flail mowing dykes one would imagine. This machine also featured a different track design to what we normally see on the MCR range of machines from the French manufacturer.

Steve has been a long-term fan of the Takeuchi brand, and it was great to see the new TB370W baby rubber duck on the stand, which I personally think looked so much better with the big flotation tyres fitted on this example. Most of the examples we have seen in the UK so far only have the small road going tyres on, but fitted with the big wide tyres it looks a very capable beast!  

On the Yanmar stand the manufacturer who has factories in France and Germany, presented the all new SV39 mini excavator, which I had an exclusive test drive of at their demonstration arena in France earlier this week. I’ll have the full report on that in a future edition of Earthmovers Magazine in due course.

The German manufactured HANSA-Maschinenbau APZ 531 is an unusual piece of kit, designed for municipality works and grave digging, the machine has a narrow width of just 1,400mm and uses outriggers for stability during digging or other attachment work. Powered by a 175hp engine, the machine has a top road speed of 40 km/h. I had never seen one of these before, so it’s a great find!

As a wheeled excavator owner, Steve is always drawn to the “rubber ducks” and on the Hyundai Construction Equipment Europe stand, he came across this nice HW170A CR compact radius model with the much-favoured European style TAB boom and an EU-RO-Tilt tiltrotator, what a combination!

A long-time favourite in the United States, compact tracked loaders continue to gain favour in Europe, especially as a powerful tool carrier. On the CASE Construction Equipment stand, Steve spotted this TV450B model which was fitted with a Sharpgrade G116 grading attachment. Family run business Sharpgrade, was originally founded in Hamilton, New Zealand but is now based in Ohio, USA.

Volvo Construction Equipment’s EWR150 wheeled excavator continues to be a popular machine in the rubber duck market, this example is seen fitted with a Steelwrist tiltrotator and rotary brush attachment.

Launched at Bauma, in April this year, Liebherr Construction Equipment once again showcased its 911 Compact 10-11 tonne class wheeled excavator. 

This was also seen at the show sporting Kubota livery as part of the partnership deal revealed during Bauma in Munich.

Like many of the European shows, MATEXPO was a family friendly event, with young children welcomed along, which can only be a good thing for the future of our industry, this young lad was sampling the delights of the Wacker Neuson EZ17 mini excavator.

We thank Steve for sharing his images with us here on the Digger Man Blog, this was only a small sample of the photos he sent over, which is much appreciated.