Digging Up the Past – Finding The Oldest Hanix Excavator in the UK

Excavator experts, Hanix Europe, are celebrating 20 years trading in the UK. To mark the success, they launched an appeal to find the oldest working Hanix excavator in the country and discovered one of their very first machines still going strong. The N220 mini excavator owned and operated from new by EPS Hire Centres in West Yorkshire was made in 1988. Used continuously since then, the 20 year old machine was still in daily use until this year when it was sold to a contractor and long time hirer.

EPS director David Fielden explained, “When we bought the N220 we were operating a skip hire business and the machine was needed to sort materials in our yard. Many customers who saw the machine were keen to hire it, so it added a new dimension to our business. Local builders loved it – at 2.2 tonnes it was a good compromise between the 1.5 and three tonne machines available elsewhere. Over the last four or five years, metal tracked machines have been less welcome on building sites and so the excavator has been on long term hire to a landfill contractor and used to reinstate a former tip into agricultural land.”

Peter Rosevere of Hanix explained, “We still offer an excavator in the 2.2 tonne class, the H22B. It has the same advantage of compact size so it can go where bigger machines can not and yet still be powerful enough to handle heavy jobs. The new machines do now offer greater driver comfort and convenience, are easier to operate and now have rubber tracks. If anything they are even more robust.”

Hanix offer a complete range of mini and midi excavators from 0.8 tonne to 7.5 tonnes designed to make easy work of difficult digging, grading and other tasks. Sales and service is provided by a nationwide network of trained dealers who are fully supported by the Manchester HQ. Extensive parts stocks are maintained to give 24 hour response on the rare occasions when replacement parts are needed.

EPS Hire centres bought their N220 for under £13,000 and sold it after 20 years for £1,500 – a testament to both the long life of the machines and the residual values. Hanix understand that this machine has subsequently been sold on by the second owner and no doubt is still doing sterling work. The company believe that this is the oldest machine still working in the UK – but do you know better? If you do, the company will be happy to hear from you.

High/low resolution images are on the web at www.ainsmag.co.uk/hx242/4607hx1a.htm

Note to editors.
Machines first imported into the UK were branded Nissan. Hanix is the modern branding, the name being derived from the first two letters of Handozer and Nissan with the addition of the letter x, the Japanese symbol for infinity.

Hanix Europe is the UK arm of Nagano, the Japanese company that invented the hydraulic 360 degree slewing mini excavator over 38 years ago. The range of Japanese built excavation equipment extends from 900Kg to 7.5 tonnes, giving flexibility to meet every need. Designed for hard work in tough environments, Hanix excavators give great reliability and productivity with minimal on-going cost of ownership.

Peter Rosevere, Tel. +44 (0) 161 335 2330 Fax. +44 (0)161 335 2349
E-mail: sales@hanixeurope.com Web: www.hanixeurope.com
Hanix Europe Ltd, Unit B Alliance Industrial Est., Windmill Lane, Denton, Manchester, M34 3SP, UK

This release was published on openPR.