In the year 2005, the company Pinguely-Haulotte was renamed Haulotte Group. This change in name brought the end of the Pinguely name after 124 years! The Haulotte Group is known for manufacturing telescopic work platforms, articulated work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms, scissor lifts and trailer mounted work platforms.
The Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, Inc. on July 24th, the year 2008. Bil-Jax is the biggest US scaffold manufacturer. Now, Haulotte Group has three factories in France, one plant in Spain, one plant in Romania, near Pitesti City. There is a new plant that opened in the winter of 2008. This plant is just 1 km away from the existing factory near Pitesti within the County of Arges. The factory is called Arges II. There are also two factories in the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely established the Pinguely Company in the year 1881 in Lyon, France. Initially, they built steam locomotives. The business evolved into making machinery eventually. In 1892, they provided a steam engine to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
Pinguely provided 7 locomotives to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. When it comes to numbers produced, Pinguely was not a main locomotive manufacturer. The company provided a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely began manufacturing steam shovels. Production of steam locomotives was stopped and the company began concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving machines instead.
Haulotte
In 1924, Haulotte was established in L'Horme by Arthur Haulotte. The company was known as Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This company specialized in manufacturing aerial platforms, mobile cranes and derricks.
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 business can focus on self-propelled aerial work platforms.