Lionel Whitnell Scrapers Nearly Ready to Roar!
Lionel explained that he had been watching these two Caterpillar 621E’s for some time having seen them up for sale in France. He decided to take a trip out to see them and took fellow earthmoving man Nigel Mogg with him for the evaluation.
Old school earthmovers know that there is really nothing that compares to motor scrapers for shifting muck if the ground conditions are good, and Lionel has wanted to add them to his fleet for some time.
Originally sold into the French market by main Cat dealer Bergerat Monnoyeur, the 621E’s which are sister machines, serial numbers 2PD00770 and 2PD00773 were built in 1991 and were manufactured in Caterpillar’s Brazilian facility. Lionel explained, “I have always felt that the scrapers made in Brazil are always the best ones and seem to be of better quality to the ones built in California, that’s why I went for these two”.
Lionel continued, “I was given the opportunity to test drive them at the yard in France, and to be honest I did give them some stick!” Having thrashed the scrapers around the yard the seller was heard to comment, “OMG you are very fast in the scrapers!” For Lionel it’s the only way to drive them, “It was always flat out, all the time for us back in the day, after all when your shifting muck, it’s a race against the weather” he said.
Since bringing the machines back to the UK Lionel and his team of mechanics have put in many hours of refurbishment work on them and no expense has been spared, with attention to detail absolutely stunning. 
Lionel says that eventually they will receive a full shot blast and repaint, but the objective at the moment is to get them in a good working condition, they will then be put to work on a job that he has lined up for them so they can make sure there are no leaks and that they are mechanically sound before the final touches are done.
We expect to visit them in the field when they go to work for a full report in a future edition of Earthmovers Magazine, definitely one to look out for. In the meantime checkout our walkaround video of the two machines.