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 popular for manufacturing articulated work platforms, telescopic work platforms, trailer mounted work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms and scissor lifts.
On July 24th, the year 2008 the Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, who was the US' largest scaffold manufacturer. Now, Haulotte Group has three plants in France, one plant in Spain, one in Romania, near Pitesti City. There is a new factory which opened during the winter of 2008. This factory is 1 km away from the existing plant near Pitesti City within the County of Arges. The plant is known as Arges II. There are also two factories in the USA, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
The company was formed during 1881 in Lyon, France by Alexandre Pinguely. The company first constructed steam locomotives. The business eventually evolved into making machines. In 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
The company supplied 7 locomotives to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. Pinguely was not considered a main locomotive manufacturer when it comes to numbers produced. The company provided a steam train to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in 1930 and by 1932, Pinguely started making steam shovels. Production of steam locomotives was stopped and the company began concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving equipment instead.
Haulotte
Arthur Hualotte established the beginnings of Haulotte during 1924, when it was referred to as Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This business specialized in the production of 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 marketing and engineering, design, research and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the company could concentrate on self-propelled aerial work platforms.