Versatile Equipment making a big Bobcat Impact!

Last week I had the pleasure to visit the impressive premises of Versatile Equipment Ltd, who from the 1st January this year became the main dealers for Bobcat for Greater London and the South East of England.

Versatile took over as the authorised dealers for the area following the demise of the former dealers Bobcat of London, and have clearly made a massive impact on the territory, much gained from their long-term presence and experience in the region as a skid steer and compact plant rental business previously.

Covering an area that also includes Essex, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent and Surrey Versatile are ideally located in what must be one of the busiest territories in the country. According to Bobcat, the region accounts for around 20% of the total value of machinery sales in construction and the related markets in the UK.

The HQ which is ideally located on the Hornet Business estate in Borough Green, is housed in two buildings and has seen significant investment with all new Bobcat branding, for the new customer reception area, showroom, parts and service warehouse, and the administration and sales department sections.

As previously mentioned, in addition to selling and supporting the Bobcat products, Versatile Equipment also run a modern state-of-the-art rental fleet of compact skid steer loaders, complimented by a wide range of attachments, which is one of the largest of its kind in the UK.

It comes as no real surprise to see that Bobcat machines now feature prominently in the Versatile rental fleet, a perfect fit for the business really, as the Bobcat brand has always been synonymous with skid steers for as long as I can remember, and they certainly do have many years of experience built into them and as far as I can see, they don’t come much better than a Bobcat.

Talking of skid steers, during this visit I was treated to a look around some of the latest models in the Bobcat R-Series range of Stage V emissions compliant models including the tracked T66 and T76 models and the wheeled variants the S66 and S76.

Stability and performance have been greatly improved on the new R-Series loaders, which feature longer wheelbases and track footprints compared to the previous M-Series models, while an enhanced hydraulic system provides class leading pushing and breakout forces, with increased lifting capacity.

The new T66 and T76 compact track loaders have a solid undercarriage system as standard, but can be equipped with the optional 5-Link Torsion Suspension Undercarriage as an option guaranteeing an even better ride, tackling rough terrain with ease, feeling less bumps and avoiding material spillage. The optional Auto Ride Control feature can be specified as an option to further enhance operator comfort while resulting in less spillage of materials.

I hope to be taking a closer look around some of these new loaders in due course and getting another “hands-on” experience with them. On this occasion I was there to try out the latest model in the R-Series mini excavator range the E60 R2, which I will be covering in the future edition of Earthmovers Magazine, but in the meantime checkout my Versatile Equipment yard walkaround video.