In 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 known 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' largest scaffold manufacturer. Now, Haulotte Group has three plants in France, one factory in Spain, one plant in Romania, near Pitesti City. There is a new plant which opened during the winter of the year 2008. This plant is 1 km away from the existing factory near Pitesti in the County of Arges. The factory is known as Arges II. There are also two factories in the USA, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely formed the Pinguely Company in the year 1881 within Lyon, France. At first, they built steam engines. The business evolved into making machines eventually. During 1892, they provided a locomotive to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
The company provided 7 steam engines 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 the year 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely started manufacturing steam shovels. Production of steam locomotives was stopped and the company began concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving machines instead.
Haulotte
Arthur Hualotte established the beginnings of Haulotte during the year 1924, when it was referred to as Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This company specialized in the production of 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 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.