In the year 2005, the business Pinguely-Haulotte was renamed Haulotte Group. This name change brought the end of the Pinguely name after 124 years! The Haulotte Group is popular for making articulated work platforms, telescopic work platforms, trailer mounted work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms and scissor lifts.
On July 24th, 2008 the Haulotte Group obtained Bil-Jax, who was the US' biggest scaffold manufacturer. Now, Haulotte Group has one plant in Spain, three plants in France, one in Romania, near the City of Pitesti. There is a new plant which opened during the winter of the year 2008. This factory is just 1 km away from the existing factory near Pitesti in Arges County. The plant is referred to as Arges II. There are also two plants within the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely formed the Pinguely Company during 1881 within Lyon, France. Initially, they constructed steam locomotives. The business evolved into making equipment eventually. During 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
The company supplied 7 steam engines to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. Pinguely was not considered a major steam engine manufacturer when it comes to numbers produced. The company provided a steam train to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone during the year 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely began making steam shovels. Steam locomotive production was stopped and the company began focusing instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving machines instead.
Haulotte
Arthur Hualotte formed the beginnings of Haulotte in the year 1924, when it was called Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This company specialized in manufacturing derricks, aerial platforms and mobile cranes.
Pinguely-Haulotte
It was decided that the actual manufacturing was to be sub-contracted to Pinguely-Haulotte. They were to be responsible for the engineering and marketing, design, research and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the business could concentrate on self-propelled aerial work platforms.