NOVEMBER 2022 Ӏ CRANE HISTORY
ANNIVERSARY
The Liebherr
AUK 40T-60 was a best seller in Liebherr-Werk Ehingen’s early years. It had a 24m telescopic boom
j deals struck between Kobelco
and P&H, Sumitomo and Link-Belt, Yutani and Northwest, and IHI and Koehring. They joined Hitachi’s own- designed products and, by the mid-1960s, the Japanese industry was producing nearly 2,000 lattice cranes. 85% of these were crawlers. During the second half of the 1960s Japanese demand for lattice cranes grew to nearly 3,000 units with 30% now being truck cranes of up to 150 tonnes capacity. By this time, however, domestic Japanese demand for telescopic truck cranes had begun to develop and, from being almost non-existent in 1965, had grown to 1,500 units in 1970.
At that time, the rough terrain crane was unknown in Japan - Tadano developing Japan’s very first rough terrain in 1970. Also, as the decade drew to a close, Japan’s hydraulic crane makers were only just beginning to explore overseas markets for their cranes. In the 1960s, like Japan, Europe was also a market where truck cranes and roadable pick-and-carry industrial cranes were popular. UK producers dominated European production with their total mobile crane output rising to approximately 500 units in 1969. There were also numerous new manufacturers of telescopic cranes in Germany, Italy, France and elsewhere. The Italian Industry grew dramatically with almost 100 manufacturers. The leader, Ormig produced no less than 5,000 of its best-selling 75M pick-and-carry model. Tower cranes had also
developed and become suitable for hi-rise and industrial construction. The predominant types were bottom-slewing cranes with saddle jibs being used as the primary building construction tool across central and west Europe. During the five years to 1969
alone, some 7,800 US crawler cranes were sold in North America, with 5,400 being very small machines of up to 45 US ton (41 tonne) capacity. While truck cranes were generally of limited lifting capacity due primarily to the strength limitations of vehicles of the day, development continued. In 1965 Germany’s Demag
In 1969 the first
truck mounted crane to be produced at the new Liebherr-Werk Ehingen factory was the AUK 220. The first model from the factory went to a customer in Denmark
44 CRANES TODAY
introduced its own 100-tonne lattice truck crane in the shape of their TC 400. While crawlers were favoured by contractors crane hirers preferred the mobility of the truck crane.
In addition to the various
‘mobile’ telescopic cranes (rough terrains, truck cranes and industrials) some of the early manufacturers of small truck-
mounted telescopic concentrated their efforts on this ‘small’ end of the market, developing today’s boom truck industry. Amongst these were Pitman (RO), National Crane (previously Burg) and such companies as the Hiab in Sweden, and Unic in Japan. As the 1960s drew to a close,
the hydraulic mobile crane industry (excluding the manufacturers of small truck-mounted cranes) comprised some 70 manufacturers producing a total of about 6,300 cranes per year. In an effort to solve housing
shortages in the UK and Europe, during the 1960s modular house- building systems, often based on Scandinavian and German designs, grew in popularity across Europe and the UK. This fostered a demand for small tower cranes and led to crawler-mounted tower cranes produced by Liebherr, Munster and others being widely employed by British building contractors. In 1954 Liebherr established a plant in Bischofshofen, Austria, where its smaller tower cranes would be built and then, in 1960, opened a major plant in Biberach- Ris which would become its primary tower crane plant. As early as 1965 Liebherr Werk Biberach began producing truck- mounted lattice boom strut jib and tower cranes of the AUK Series. Eventually the series extended to 13 models – all available as tower cranes. In 1969 production of these cranes was transferred to the new Liebherr-Werk Ehingen factory where the 125-tonne capacity AUK 220 and 79 of the small AUK 40T-60 were produced. During the mid-1960s as buildings and industrial facilities grew ever-taller, large American lattice boom truck and crawler cranes were developed into tower configurations. In particular Manitowoc’s 150-ton 4000W crawler and, starting in 1963,
f
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