When British excavators ruled the world

During a recent discussion on our Digger Man Blog Facebook page the question was asked, why can’t we build quality plant and machinery anymore. I have to admit it’s very sad to think back to the once dominant brands in the UK market like Priestman’s and in this revisited blog from my Contract Journal days, Hymac.

I can remember a time when it was commonplace to call any 360 degree machine on site, a Hymac, but in recent years I have noticed that many of the younger generation of machine operators, do not even recall or know what a Hymac was? Back in the day these British built machines were world leaders and were exported all over the globe. However there is still great interest in these classic old British excavators as our recent Facebook discussion proved.

Here is a brief history of the Hymac company. Production of the first Hymac excavator the 480 which only featured 270 degree slew began in 1962. Between 1962-1966 312 of these were manufactured.  

The 480 was replaced by the 5/8 cu yd 580 in 1964 versions of this model were prime products of Hymac until 1987 with over 10,000 units sold. The Hymac 580C has a special place in my heart as it was on these machines that my operating career started whilst working for Wimpeys in the late 70's.  

Photo: This superb restoration of a Hymac 580C is owned by Jim Davies in South Wales.

Other models were introduced later including their largest ever machine the 33ton 1290 which first appeared in the early 1970's, and the Hymac 880.  

In this shot we see a fine example of a Hymac 580CT still working in Sweden, which was a hotbed for Hymac sales.  

Hymac and the German firm Hanomag based in Hanover, were acquired by the IBH group in 1980. In the early 80's the Hymac range of four basic models were, the crawler 580D/DS, the crawler 450E/ELC and its wheeled version W450E+W350D, the crawler 201LC and its wheeled version W201 which were introduced in 1983 these were designed jointly by Hymac & Hanomag, IBH collapsed in 1983.  

In 1984 Hymac was bought by Northern Engineering Industries production of all Hymac models recommenced soon after near Wolverhampton, however in 1987 the BM group took over the company and renamed it Hymac Group Ltd the following year ownership changed again!! Gordon Brown formed Brown Engineering (Hymac) during this time badged Italian models made by FAI were introduced the 13t W121, 21t 211 and the 25t 251.  

Photo: Courtesy of Jeremy Rowlands The Illustrated History of Hymac.

Following the collapse of the Brown group in 1991 the company was bought by Irish dealer John Kennedy but despite launching new models in 1992 the Synchron 1301 & 1501 which featured Linde's Synchron load sensing hydraulic systems.

Production finally ceased in 1993 the very last machine ever built by Hymac was an 18t 181B model a sad end to a great British company who simply just could not compete with the non-leaking, higher specification Japanese competitors. 

Check out this rather cheesy retro style video featuring a very rare Hymac 1080 which I believe was at the time located in Canada.