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 making telescopic work platforms, articulated work platforms, vertical mast-work platforms, scissor lifts and trailer mounted work platforms.
On the 24th of July, the year 2008 the Haulotte Group obtained Bil-Jax, who was the US' biggest scaffold manufacturer. Currently, Haulotte Group has three plants in France, one factory in Spain, one in Romania, near the City of Pitesti. There is a new plant that opened during the winter of 2008. This factory is 1 km away from the existing factory near Pitesti City within the County of Arges. The plant is known as Arges II. There are also two plants within the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
The company was established during the year 1881 within Lyon, France by Alexandre Pinguely. The company first build steam engines. The company eventually evolved into making machines. During 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
Pinguely provided 7 trains to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. In terms of numbers produced, Pinguely was not a main steam engine manufacturer. The company supplied a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely started manufacturing steam shovels. Steam locomotive production was stopped and the company began focusing instead on mobile cranes and making earthmoving equipment instead.
Haulotte
During the year 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 manufacturing aerial platforms, mobile cranes and derricks.
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 business could focus on self-propelled aerial work platforms.