A tale of a bad bail out

A TY45 model. Over 30,000 built, but now a rare sight.

When looking at excavators around the Middle East, you will see any number of brands, old and new toiling away in the dust. While most of them will be from one of two well-known marques, there are countless others that were either bought long ago, or have been bought cheaply at auction since. It isn’t uncommon to see Kobelco machines working alongside Hysters and Atlases. We even saw a Zeppelin creaking away in Jumeriah recently.

One brand you won’t see though is the French maker Poclain – but why is this? It is true that the name hasn’t been used for a few years, but with more than 30,000 of it’s best-selling TY45 model built, you’d think there might still be a few about.

The firm came about from a boy named Georges Bataille who had an infantile obsession with the heavy machinery on his parents’ farm.

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After the Second World War, Bataille and his sons wanted to build some hydraulic machinery, as the rest of the world was doing. Development work produced a system of rams that worked at great pressures with narrow diameter bores.

However, Poclain’s most significant contribution was the development of the hydraulic motor, which was done over a period of years.

These moves turned out to be fantastic for the company as through the fifties and sixties it changed from being a small-time manufacturer of farm machinery to being the world’s largest maker of excavators, most of which were mounted on the curious tripodal wheeled chassis.

Poclain’s moment of glory came in 1969 when it built the EC1000, which was at the time the largest hydraulic shovel in existence. However, this moment was quickly over as the machine was not reliable, and a huge financial disaster for the firm.

The early 1970s, and the associated oil crisis cut into sales, but the French government would not let it cut back on its workforce while also blocking a shares sale deal with another company, and so effectively suffocating the firm.

A further kick to the downed man was the fact that Caterpillar chose this time to enter the hydraulic excavator market, while Japanese Komatsu suddenly upped the game, making the French company’s products look unreliable and dated.

Though propped up by the government, Poclain went into decline and was snapped up by rival firm Case in a firesale in 1974. That wasn’t the end, as Case built a number of Poclain branded products for a time afterwards. The founding family held on to the hydraulic motor division, which survives to this day.

Unfortunately, it seems this once famous name on finished machines will fade into obscurity, a victim of indifferent built quality, muddled product range and government interference. Had the company not been so tied to the state it might have survived, or at least negotiated a deal on better terms.

In this age of government bailouts and stimulus packages, manufacturers should take note before accepting the
blank cheque.