Liebherr celebrate 60 years in France
Company marks diamond anniversary with special edition R 960 SME crawler excavator
MARKING six decades of successful operation in France, Liebherr have celebrated their diamond anniversary with a special design of a R 960 SME (Super Mass Excavation) crawler excavator handed over to longstanding customers Chavaz Père et Fils.
Featuring a vintage look, the special edition 60-tonne excavator has been given a distinctive grey colour scheme and retro-modern fusion to depict the philosophy of the Liebherr brand, while highlighting the company’s innovation, origins, and roots.
Emphatically factory-made in France, the machine’s components have been painted in the colours of the country where it was manufactured. The excavator’s counterweight, undercarriage and uppercarriage also have a blue, white and red trim – as an indispensable and yet subtle celebration of 60 years of French quality.
The number ‘60’ marked in special version of the R 960 SME excavator refers not only to the weight in tons of the machine and the decade of Liebherr’s arrival in France but also a reminder of how many years the German manufacturer has operated in the country. The number appears right in the centre of the excavator, on the counterweight, where it nestles among the French national colours
Quarry operators Chavaz Père et Fils have a long and proud history with Liebherr and are always on the lookout for innovation and performance when it comes to investing in new construction equipment.
Liebherr’s SME crawler excavator range (from 42- to 100-tonne) features four specialized models for quarrying applications. All variants have reinforced undercarriages for increased robustness, with integrated components from models higher up the standard range. In the case of the R 960 SME excavator for Chavaz Père et Fils, these components come from a 70-tonne R 966 HD excavator.
For heavy-duty applications and when larger-capacity buckets are required, the SME machines come equipped with a heavier counterweight. This keeps the excavator stable, making it more comfortable for the operator. In line with Liebherr’s philosophy, the excavator’s movement kinematics and special SME cylinders offer more powerful digging and breakout forces that are said to be unrivalled in this machine category on the market.
