by Nick Drew | Thu 09 Oct 2014
The Bill gets into digger mode with high speed JCB
On a recent visit to JCB's world headquarters in Staffordshire, I spotted an unusual looking version of the companies famous HMEE backhoe loader, which was in the livery of the Metropolitan Police. I was determined to find out more about the machine.
Apparently this JCB HMEE, High Mobility Engineer Excavator, was used recently by the Metropolitan and South Wales Police as a support vehicle at the NATO Summit held at Celtic manor in September. The same machine was also used by the Met Police at the Olympic Games in London in 2012.
The HMEE is a high speed self-deployable backhoe loader capable of 88km/h thus avoiding the need for a support truck to transport it over longer distances. The machine was available to the police as a support vehicle to clear obstructions in the event of any demonstrations and was given the call-sign “Jumbo 2”. Call sign Jumbo 1 is held by another JCB, a 415 protected wheeled loading shovel.
Check out this video on the military version of the JCB HMEE.
[youtube width="725" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPt6-uce-ss[/youtube]
The HMEE is manufactured at the JCB facility in Savannah, Georgia in the USA but was converted to the blue livery including blue lights and sirens in 2012 at the request of the police. JCB has sold HMEEs to various defence users since 2007 many having seen active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.