Mecalac is all in for Vegas

As a Conexpo first, Mecalac will be showcasing all of its ranges at ConExpo, with demonstrations from as many as 15 models at stand F2658.

The company’s MCR excavators and TA site dumpers will be showcased, as well as its AS swing loaders.

At Mecalac’s press conference, Patrick Brehmer, the company’s head of design and product management, described a number of innovations visitors could expect to see from its machines.

He drew special attention to the MCR series excavators, which Brehmer said overcome many of the shortcomings of competitor models.

Firstly, he mentioned issues of speed with regular crawler excavators, which can travel at little more than 5kph. The new MCR compact crawler excavator has a maximum travel speed of 10kph, due, he said, to its “revolutionary design with a triangular undercarriage”.

In doing so, he added that the MCR series is almost as mobile as a wheeled excavator or backhoe loader.

He moved on to space management, explaining that the MCR’s boom being at the side of the body, as opposed to the front boom that is currently standard on compact tracked excavators.

Brehmer explained that, when using the side-boomed Mecalac machine in an urban environment, the area required to work in is greatly reduced, potentially meaning the difference between closing a street and allowing it to remain open.

As well as the reduction in the boom swing, he said, the turning radius of the excavator is as little as 50% that required by standard compact tracked excavators.

In terms of the lifting capacity of the excavator, he said, it is able to carry up to 50% more material, due to the architecture of the boom, which gives it extra stiffness when fully utilising the loader bucket.

This year, Mecalac is attending ConExpo for the second time, after establishing a sales subsidiary in Norfolk near Boston in 2017.

At its press conference this week, Alexandre and Henri Marchetta, CEO and Chairman of the Mecalac Group, respectively, described the growth in interest within North America, which led to the decision to establish Mecalac North America LLC.

Henri Marchetta said, “We have strived to build and maintain strong relationships with everyone we deal with: suppliers, distributors, buyers, users, collaborators and many more. Keeping those relationships as an essential part of our business model has allowed us to grow internationally, and now in the North American market.”