During the year 2005, the corporation 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 articulated work platforms, telescopic work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms, scissor lifts and trailer mounted work platforms.
The Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, Inc. on July 24th, 2008. Bil-Jax is the biggest US scaffold manufacturer. At present, Haulotte Group has one plant in Spain, three plants in France, one in Romania, near the City of Pitesti. There is a new plant that opened during the winter of the year 2008. This plant is just 1 km away from the existing factory near the city of Pitesti within Arges County. The plant is known as Arges II. There are also two factories within the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely established the Pinguely Company during the year 1881 in Lyon, France. Initially, they built steam engines. The company evolved into making equipment eventually. In the year 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
Pinguely supplied 7 trains to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. When it comes to numbers produced, Pinguely was not a main locomotive manufacturer. The company supplied a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in 1930 and by 1932, Pinguely began making steam shovels. Production of steam locomotives was stopped and the company started concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving equipment instead.
Haulotte
In 1924, Haulotte was established in L'Horme by Arthur Haulotte. The company was called Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This company specialized in the production of derricks, aerial platforms and mobile cranes.
Pinguely-Haulotte
Manufacturing it was decided to be sub-contracted to Pinguely-Haulotte, who was 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.