Caterpillar Desford Milestone Caught on Camera (#throwbackthursday)

Our good friend Dirk Bömer is back with another selection of historical photos to share with us, and on this occasion featuring Caterpillar’s UK facility up in Desford, a place I have been lucky enough to visit on numerous press assignments over the past decade.

Dirk has obtained these photos which were originally taken Heinz-Herbert Cohrs, who was a well-known and highly respected German specialist journalist on construction equipment, both historical and modern, and indeed a published author who had written numerous books on the subject.

Many of his books were released by the Podszun publishing house https://www.podszun-verlag.de/baumaschinen/?p=1 which coincidentally is where you can also find Dirk’s book that he wrote on DEMAG.

Unfortunately, Mr Cohrs passed away far too young in 2018 aged just 62, but his work and photographs live on and I’m delighted to share this batch of photos here on the Digger Man Blog.

In 1995 a press event was held at the Desford facility in Leicestershire, to celebrate 10 years since the factory first opened.

As a surprise for the assembled visitors 438B model which was the 50,000^th Cat backhoe loader off the assembly line, was revealed with the great razzamatazz that we have come to expect at Caterpillar events.

At the time Caterpillar stated that the factory was employing 670 people and that the company was ranked as number two in backhoe loader sales worldwide.

In the photos it’s great to see that not only journalists and VIP customers were present but it looks like many members of the shop floor assembly employees are present during the proceedings too.

To mark this milestone the 50,000^th machine was donated to a not-for-profit organisation for a local house building programme in Northern Egypt.

These last two photos were taken during the hand-over ceremony in Cairo. To support this generous gift to the local community, the local Cat dealer MANTRAC donated a one-year all-in product support package, including servicing, maintenance, parts and even operator training.

We would love to hear from anyone who recognises themselves in these photos, and would be delighted to hear about your experiences from those times. 

Once again, we thank Dirk for sharing these wonderful historical photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.