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Memories of Happy Days on a Hitachi

Wed 14 Mar 2018

Memories of Happy Days on a Hitachi

A change of jobs can be a daunting experience even more so if you have spent your formative working years with one massive company. It came as no real surprise to me, that I felt a bit like a fish out of water initially, but luckily for me a former work colleague gave me a heads up for a job with a newly formed plant hire company called Itchen Plant Hire. This firm was owned by a guy called Alan Pulford, who had formerly worked for another local company called Bath Plant Hire, Alan had a good friend who at the time worked for the Hitachi dealer Beazer Plant Sales in Bridgwater and this contact offered Alan some excellent reconditioned UH series machines, among them was the UH02 that I was given to operate. Sadly, I have no photos of it, but here is an example of a rather tired looking model at rest which I found on the internet. The UH02 was a cracking little machine, equivalent in size to the later EX60 model, although looking very angular and boxy in design it was a dream to operate. The one I was on was powered by a 4-cylinder Isuzu diesel engine, of around 48hp but other power options were available from Nissan or Hino. The example I drove featured a long dipper arm and of course its hydraulics were legendarily smooth as we have come to expect from the Hitachi product over the years. The machine was not only powerful but it was very quick too with a slew speed of 13rpm. When I wasn’t doing the odd day out on a JCB 3CII, I spent the best part of a year on the little Hitachi, most of it spent on hire to an Irish contractor in Southampton called JM. Smyth, who was a top bloke to work for. In 1985 Joe Smyth asked me if I would like to work for him direct operating a brand new JCB 805B Turbo and so that’s where I ended up for the next year or so. Check out this video from Skadill on You Tube who came across this fine example of the later UH025 model which has been restored to her former glory, I think you will agree they have done a cracking job.

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