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Area of Practice: Lifting and material handling equipment, cranes (overhead, terrain, special), elevating platforms, conveyors. Off-road machinery, earth moving equipment, trench walls stability, drilling equipment. Construction equipment, concrete pouring and vibrating, precast concrete, prestressed concrete production, demolition. Steel structures fabrication, transportation, assembling and erecting, scaffolding. |
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Thursday, January 05, 2006
MEC Purchases Volvo Telehandlers
December 2, 2005 – Successfully reviving Mayville Engineering Co.’s defunct scissor lift product line in 2004, MEC Aerial Work Platform Sales is having its hand bringing another product back to the market. The Selma, Calif.-based MEC has purchased Volvo Construction Equipment’s telehandlers, which Volvo acquired from UpRight in 2002 but had never launched the line under the Volvo brand name.
According to Jim Tolle, president of MEC, the company was ready to take the next step in its product development. “We asked our dealers what direction we should go in,” he said. While boom lifts would have been a natural fit for the aerial work platform manufacturer, MEC’s dealers instead expressed a dire need for telehandlers. From there, Tolle said that MEC went looking for a product line to suit both the company’s and dealers’ needs.
What MEC came up with was Volvo’s telehandlers, which had gone through extensive testing and redesign after they were acquired by the manufacturing giant but had
never been relaunched. Featuring European styling with North American features, the telehanders are what Tolle calls truly turnkey. “We went over them with a fine tooth
comb for updates but didn’t find anything,” he said. “These are sleek and modern machines but still rough and durable for North America.”
The 6,000-pound capacity TH60 and 8,000-pound capacity TH80 – both with 42-foot boom lengths – will be painted red, branded as MEC, and officially launched next month at World of Concrete. Both telehandlers have a very similar look and design, Tolle said. Notable features include a low boom-mount, turbocharged Deutz engine, powershift transmission, multi-function hydraulics, enclosed operator cab, chassis leveling that allows the operator to feather the load, and a host of options. Two-wheel, four-wheel, and crab steering functions will be available from the beginning, and Tolle said MEC is also considering the idea of implementing rear steering in its design.
Lift and Access
US scissor manufacturer MEC Aerial Work Platforms has acquired Volvo’s telehandler designs as well as production tooling and major components for between 20 and 40
machines. The price was not disclosed.
The product inventory and tooling has now been transported from Volvo’s North Carolina facility to MEC’s plant in Selma, California, and the first two models - the 6000 lb (2724 kg) TH60 and 8000 lb (3632 kg) TH80 – will be ready for production before the summer of 2006. Both models, which will each have 42 ft (12,8 m) reaches, will be launched at the World of Concrete exhibition in Las Vegas in mid-January and at the Rental Show in February.
Jim Tolle, MEC sales director, told European Rental News that the telehandlers - which Volvo bought from UpRight four years ago - will be suitable for both the European and North American markets. “They look great, low and sleek – you’d swear it came out of Europe. The US market is used to simple, durable, heavy duty machines…the Volvo machines combine European styling with a structure that the American market will appreciate.”
Mr Tolle said smaller TH40 and TH50 models and a larger TH100 version – which were designed but not built by Volvo – will be fully developed by MEC and launched in 2007, with the priority being given to the 10000 lb (4540 kg) model.”
Volvo Construction Equipment's vice president for business development in Europe, Mr Faiz Ahmad, told IRN that the telehandlers were primarily designed for the North
American market, and that its rental franchise network there would not offer sufficiant demand to justify the development of the telehandler line. He said the issue was not with the telehandler designs but with the volume of demand, and that Volvo would not be pursuing the manufacture of telehandlers. "We decided it does not fit in with our dealer network", said Mr Ahmad.
KHL
Rainy California
According to Jim Tolle, president of MEC, the company was ready to take the next step in its product development. “We asked our dealers what direction we should go in,” he said. While boom lifts would have been a natural fit for the aerial work platform manufacturer, MEC’s dealers instead expressed a dire need for telehandlers. From there, Tolle said that MEC went looking for a product line to suit both the company’s and dealers’ needs.
What MEC came up with was Volvo’s telehandlers, which had gone through extensive testing and redesign after they were acquired by the manufacturing giant but had
never been relaunched. Featuring European styling with North American features, the telehanders are what Tolle calls truly turnkey. “We went over them with a fine tooth
comb for updates but didn’t find anything,” he said. “These are sleek and modern machines but still rough and durable for North America.”
The 6,000-pound capacity TH60 and 8,000-pound capacity TH80 – both with 42-foot boom lengths – will be painted red, branded as MEC, and officially launched next month at World of Concrete. Both telehandlers have a very similar look and design, Tolle said. Notable features include a low boom-mount, turbocharged Deutz engine, powershift transmission, multi-function hydraulics, enclosed operator cab, chassis leveling that allows the operator to feather the load, and a host of options. Two-wheel, four-wheel, and crab steering functions will be available from the beginning, and Tolle said MEC is also considering the idea of implementing rear steering in its design.
Lift and Access
US scissor manufacturer MEC Aerial Work Platforms has acquired Volvo’s telehandler designs as well as production tooling and major components for between 20 and 40
machines. The price was not disclosed.
The product inventory and tooling has now been transported from Volvo’s North Carolina facility to MEC’s plant in Selma, California, and the first two models - the 6000 lb (2724 kg) TH60 and 8000 lb (3632 kg) TH80 – will be ready for production before the summer of 2006. Both models, which will each have 42 ft (12,8 m) reaches, will be launched at the World of Concrete exhibition in Las Vegas in mid-January and at the Rental Show in February.
Jim Tolle, MEC sales director, told European Rental News that the telehandlers - which Volvo bought from UpRight four years ago - will be suitable for both the European and North American markets. “They look great, low and sleek – you’d swear it came out of Europe. The US market is used to simple, durable, heavy duty machines…the Volvo machines combine European styling with a structure that the American market will appreciate.”
Mr Tolle said smaller TH40 and TH50 models and a larger TH100 version – which were designed but not built by Volvo – will be fully developed by MEC and launched in 2007, with the priority being given to the 10000 lb (4540 kg) model.”
Volvo Construction Equipment's vice president for business development in Europe, Mr Faiz Ahmad, told IRN that the telehandlers were primarily designed for the North
American market, and that its rental franchise network there would not offer sufficiant demand to justify the development of the telehandler line. He said the issue was not with the telehandler designs but with the volume of demand, and that Volvo would not be pursuing the manufacture of telehandlers. "We decided it does not fit in with our dealer network", said Mr Ahmad.
KHL
Rainy California
