JCB celebrates 70 years

JCB has marked its 70th anniversary by giving employees around the world an extra day’s holiday – and by launching a limited edition version of its most famous machine.

Founded in 1945 by the late Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE in Staffordshire, UK, today the company has 22 factories, 11 in the UK and others in India, the USA, Brazil and China employing more than 12,000 people.

The special milestone is also being marked with the production of a limited edition version of the iconic 3CX backhoe loader which fuelled the company’s success. A total of 70 of the special machines will be made in striking livery last seen nearly 40 years ago on the JCB 3CIII model.

Lord Bamford, who was born on the same day as his father founded JCB, said: “My first memory of JCB really was my father. He was an engineering genius, there was no doubt about that and he was always dreaming of things, and dreaming of better ways of doing things. The backhoe loader my father invented was a godsend and started a mini revolution in construction machinery. Today  the backhoe is one of more than 300 products we produce and sell globally.

“A saying that my father had was that customers’ make payday possible and that is still true today. They are crucial to what we do and we will continue to listen to our customers around the world as we develop new machines. The fact that we are a family business makes us different as virtually none of our competitors are family businesses. We are dedicated to the production of world-class products and take a long-term view.”
 

Read the October 2015 issue of Construction Global and follow @ConstructionGL on Twitter.