08.07.2008

A new City crane range?

One of our eagle eyed readers spotted a brand new prototype of a three axle city type All Terrain crane last week in Germany. The new crane had shipped in from Japan and where it was headed we know not.
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The three axle city type AT crane

The crane could be a new model in a range planned by Kobelco, the company has said that it wants to invest more in wheeled cranes and has agreements with Grove for the marketing of the GMK 5130 and GMK 6300 in Japan, and works with Tadano on some small rough terrain models.
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The new crane weighs around 35 tonnes

The company launched its first city crane back in 1989 when it began building the RK70M a very popular small crane. It recently launched the 25 tonne Panther X250 ‘City Conscious’ crane in Japan with an overall length of under nine metres and a maximum tip height of 43.2 metres when the telescopic offsetable swingaway is added to the cranes five section main boom.
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The Kobelco Panther X250 'City Concious' crane

Kobelco understandable preferred not to discuss its plans for a global City crane range, but did say that any new product would be a long way off launch and that no final decisions had been taken.

Vertikal Comment

There has long been demand in Europe for Japanese built road legal cranes, including the truck mounts to city cranes, if Kobelco did decide to launch, a two and three axle model here it could do very well.

At the moment all Japanese manufacturers appear to be holding off with this type of product, if Kobelco entered the market it might encourage Kato and Tadano back in the market with their Japanese built products.

Watch this space