Pingon “Sitting Bull” strange concept excavator from the past

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Digging deep into construction machinery news

Tue 29 Oct 2013

Pingon “Sitting Bull” strange concept excavator from the past

The Pingon “Sitting Bull” was aptly named because the machine would position itself at the dig, using its own skid-steer style wheel arrangement, and then lower its own base frame hydraulically, so it was basically in a sitting position to commence excavation work. The concept was designed and pioneered by Pierre de Pingon, who was behind the first model, the 12A, which was launched in 1969. The excavator on show here in this photo from the Digger Man Blog archives, is believed to be a 14C model which was manufactured in the early 1970’s. I do recall my late father telling me he saw one of these at the Public Works Exhibition in Crystal Palace when I was a youngster, but I have never seen one in the metal.

One has to say it does look a strange piece of kit by today’s standards, and from what I have been told, not the easiest of machines to master, it certainly does appear to nod like a donkey in the video. I don’t think many were ever sold into the UK market, but I would be very interested to find out more about this survivor in Finland. Maybe our Finnish friend Olli Paivio can dig a bit deeper and find out more on this machine.

Please get in touch with me if you have anything of interest you would like me to cover on the Digger Man Blog. Email me at nickydrew16 at btinternet.com using the usual @email format.

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Pingon “Sitting Bull” strange concept excavator from the past

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