In the year 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, the year 2008 the Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, who was the US' largest scaffold manufacturer. Currently, Haulotte Group has one plant in Spain, three plants in France, one in Romania, near the City of Pitesti. There is a new plant which opened during the winter of the year 2008. This factory is just 1 km away from the existing factory near the city of Pitesti in the County of Arges. The plant is called Arges II. There are also two factories in the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely formed the Pinguely Company during 1881 within Lyon, France. Initially, they built steam engines. The company evolved into making machinery eventually. During 1892, they supplied a steam engine 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 locomotive manufacturer when it comes to numbers produced. The company supplied a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone during the year 1930 and by 1932, Pinguely started making steam shovels. Steam locomotive production was stopped and the company began concentrating instead on mobile cranes and manufacturing earthmoving machinery instead.
Haulotte
During the year 1924, Haulotte was formed 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
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, research, design and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the company could concentrate on self-propelled aerial work platforms.