Old Girls on Display at Bunton Plant Hire

by Nick Drew | Thu 01 Sep 2016

Old Girls on Display at Bunton Plant Hire

Last week I was on a bit of an epic tour of the North East and Yorkshire for Earthmovers Magazine, but on the way back down I called into Bunton Plant Hire’s depot ahead of my test drive on the Hidromek HMK140LC and was delighted to see the old machines that are preserved in the yard.

Arriving at Bunton’s depot one is greeted by an example of JCB’s 110 hydrostatically driven crawler loaders. The machine was something of a revolution when it was first introduced in 1971, with the hydrostatic drive and rear mounted engine design, but they didn’t stay in the range for long as sales were not as good as expected. This example was the 18^th of 197 units that were built and is fully operational. In all fairness the ergonomics in the cab of these machines were pretty poor, with the steering tillers right out in front of the operator and by all accounts you knew you had done a day’s work in one by the time you went home!

Another notable machine was the JCB 2B backhoe loader which is apparently the first machine the family business started out with back in 1970 when the company was established. These are quite rare machines as not that many were built as I understand it. My only recollection of them is that my uncle used to drive one on the Isle of Wight.

The unmistakable JCB 3C III Powertrain is also included in the collection. This machine has been fully restored to full working condition with many parts sourced from a similar donor machine. I used to operate one of these from brand new on Wimpey’s registration number AYY 350T, I wonder where she is now?

Andrew Bunton and the team are very keen on preserving old machines and they have a number of projects waiting in the wings including a JCB 806 hydraulic excavator and this old JCB Mk 1 backhoe loader all of which will receive a full makeover in due course.

But of course it’s all the modern kit that pays the bill’s and before I headed off to try out the new Hidromek 14 tonner, I was shown an example of the company’s HMK102 backhoe loaders that was being prepared to go out on demonstration again.

The Digger Man Blog would like to thank the Bunton crew for the kind hospitality shown to us during the recent visit and we look forward to coming up again in the future.

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