During 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 making telescopic work platforms, articulated work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms, scissor lifts and trailer mounted work platforms.
On July 24th, the year 2008 the Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, who was the US' biggest scaffold manufacturer. Currently, Haulotte Group has three factories in France, one factory in Spain, one 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 the city of Pitesti within Arges County. The plant is called Arges II. There are also two plants within the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely established the Pinguely Company in the year 1881 in Lyon, France. Initially, they built steam engines. The company evolved into making equipment eventually. During the year 1892, they supplied a locomotive to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
The company provided 7 trains to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. Pinguely was not considered a major steam engine manufacturer when it comes to numbers produced. The company provided a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone during 1930 and by 1932, Pinguely started manufacturing steam shovels. Steam locomotive production was stopped and the company started focusing instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving machines instead.
Haulotte
During 1924, Haulotte was formed in L'Horme by Arthur Haulotte. The company was called Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This business specialized in manufacturing 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 engineering and marketing, design, research and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the business could focus on self-propelled aerial work platforms.