Think You Know All About Yanmar CE EMEA, Think Again!

Yanmar has long been a powerhouse in the mini excavator, compact equipment and diesel engine sectors, but what do you really know about the European arm of this incredible Japanese manufacturer.

It was around 1984/85 when I first spent time on a Yanmar mini excavator, on a housing development site in Waterlooville, Hampshire. In those days they were a kind of sandy yellow colour.

I cannot recall what the model number was but it was a 2.5 tonne machine which we had on hire from a Southampton based company called Sunnybank Plant, I believe that it was one of the first of its kind delivered to a company in the South of England. I always thought it was a nice performing machine, especially compared to the much larger JCB 805B Turbo that was my regular mount for contractor J.M. Smyth.

There have been numerous changes to the Yanmar Compact Equipment division since those days, including collaborations with Ammann, and German manufacturer Schaeff, and who can forget the introduction of the ViO Series of zero-tailswing machines in 1993.

The Yanmar machines had traditionally been painted in a shade of yellow for many years, but in 2020 the transition to their new “Premium Red” livery began, initially starting with the US market, and later rolled out right across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

It’s a striking livery and in my humble opinion looks to be a better look for the machines and appears to have been well received by their customers.

Today the company has two production sites in Europe, with one in Crailsheim, in Germany, and in Saint-Dizier in France. I am planning to visit one of these in the not-too-distant future to find out more about the business, but in the meantime, checkout this corporate video from Yanmar Compact Equipment EMEA, for a brief insight into the business.