French Army Knife

Monday’s post on the quirky Chinese backhoe loader concept certainly attracted a lot of attention, and I’m indebted to industry experts and plant and machinery forum stalwarts Peter Simpson and Pete Duck, for reminding me that others had tried such a concept in the past, some of which have indeed featured on this blog previously.

Peter said that German manufacturer Schaeff had produced the SMB 2041, something very similar many years ago. I have to be honest, I had never seen that one before, as they say, everyday is a school day, so thanks for the heads up, Peter!

Pete’s suggestion was the French built Haulotte MJX 970 which we did cover here on the blog before, but the images and video were lost when we made a swap over from website providers, so it’s a good opportunity to re-visit this machine.

Photo: Courtesy of Ondřej Hájek of bagry.cz

The Haulotte Multijob MJX 970 was part of a 3-model range flanked by the smaller MJX 950 and the MJX 990.

These unique and typically French 4x4 drive machines, also featured all the benefits of a 360^o excavator and a front-end telescopic loader in one package.

Many Haulotte’s made it into the French army I believe, but my understanding is that these machines are no longer in production.

And as mentioned previously by Peter, here is the German built Schaeff SMB 2041. 

Checkout this video of a MJX 970 going through the motions in a dealers yard.