During the year 2005, the corporation 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 manufacturing telescopic work platforms, articulated work platforms, scissor lifts, trailer mounted work platforms and vertical mast-work platforms.
On July 24th, 2008 the Haulotte Group obtained Bil-Jax, who was the US' biggest scaffold manufacturer. At present, Haulotte Group has three factories in France, one plant in Spain, one factory in Romania, near Pitesti City. There is a new factory which opened in the winter of 2008. This plant is 1 km away from the existing plant near the city of Pitesti in the County of Arges. The factory is called Arges II. There are also two plants within the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
The company was formed during 1881 within Lyon, France by Alexandre Pinguely. The company initially build steam engines. The business eventually evolved into making equipment. During 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
The company supplied 7 trains to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. Pinguely was not considered a major steam engine manufacturer in terms of numbers produced. The company supplied a steam train to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely started making steam shovels. Production of steam locomotives was stopped and the company began focusing instead on mobile cranes and making earthmoving machines instead.
Haulotte
In the year 1924, Haulotte was established in L'Horme by Arthur Haulotte. The company was called Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This business specialized in manufacturing mobile cranes, derricks and aerial platforms.
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, research, design and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the company can concentrate on self-propelled aerial work platforms.