In the year 2005, the business 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, 2008 the Haulotte Group acquired Bil-Jax, who was the US' biggest scaffold manufacturer. Now, Haulotte Group has three plants in France, one factory in Spain, one in Romania, near the City of Pitesti. There is a new factory which opened during the winter of the year 2008. This factory is 1 km away from the existing plant near Pitesti City within Arges County. The factory is called Arges II. There are also two plants in the United States, the former Bill-Jax.
Pinguely
Alexandre Pinguely formed the Pinguely Company in the year 1881 in Lyon, France. At first, they built steam engines. The company evolved into making machines eventually. During the year 1892, they provided a train to the Chemin de Fer de St Victor a Thizy.
Pinguely provided 7 locomotives to the Voiron-Saint-Beron railway. When it comes to numbers produced, Pinguely was not a major steam engine manufacturer. The company supplied a steam locomotive to the Chemin de Fer du Haut-Rhone in the year 1930 and by the year 1932, Pinguely started making steam shovels. Steam locomotive production was stopped and the company began focusing instead on mobile cranes and making earthmoving machinery instead.
Haulotte
Arthur Hualotte formed the beginnings of Haulotte during 1924, when it was referred to as Ateliers de Construction A. Haulotte. This company specialized in the production of aerial platforms, mobile cranes and derricks.
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, design, research and development. All products were abandoned by Saubot so that the business could focus on self-propelled aerial work platforms.