JCB – The greatest ever digger
IN a fitting tribute on the company’s 60th anniversary, the ubiquitous JCB backhoe loader has won a television ‘David and Goliath’ contest to be voted the world’s greatest ever digger.
The machine, pioneered by the company’s founder, Joseph Cyril Bamford, more than 50 years ago, was judged to be the number one digging machine by a panel of experts on a recent episode of The Greatest Ever, shown on Channel Five.
During the programme, the overall performance of the JCB backhoe was compared to nine others earthmoving machines, ranging from an enormous bucket-wheel excavator to the world’s largest wheel loader, in order to compile a league table of the 10 machines considered to be the best in history.
The small but highly versatile JCB workhorse, which has achieved sales of more than 325,000 across five continents, beat off competition from the larger machines to be placed in top spot as the greatest of them all.
Plant operators and other industry professionals in the UK and North America singled out the JCB backhoe range for particular praise during the programme. US digger expert Eric Orlman said: ‘It’s not necessarily the biggest and the most powerful that comes in at number one. Sometimes it is the smallest and the most versatile tool that comes out on top. That’s why in the top 10 of the world’s greatest earthmovers the JCB comes in at number one.’
A JCB spokesman said: ‘We are very proud and delighted that the machine, which is synonymous with the JCB name, has been judged by our peers as being the best of its kind in the world.’
