During 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 popular for manufacturing telescopic work platforms, articulated work platforms, scissor lifts, trailer mounted work platforms and vertical mast-work platforms.
On the 24th of July, the year 2008 the Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, who was the US' largest scaffold manufacturer. Currently, Haulotte Group has three plants in France, one factory in Spain, one in Romania, near Pitesti City. There is a new plant which opened in the winter of the year 2008. This factory is only 1 km away from the existing factory near Pitesti City in Arges County. The plant is called Arges II. There are also two plants within the USA, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely established the Pinguely Company during 1881 within Lyon, France. Initially, they built steam engines. The company eventually evolved into making machines. During the year 1892, they supplied a steam engine 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 when it comes to numbers produced. The company supplied a steam train 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 began concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving equipment instead.
Haulotte
In 1924, Haulotte was formed in L'Horme by Arthur Haulotte. The company was referred to as 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 engineering and marketing, design, research and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the company could focus on self-propelled aerial work platforms.