A pioneer of the concept in the late 1960s and still driving the sector forward, Yanmar Compact Equipment celebrates 55 years of mini-excavator innovation.
While the Beatles song ‘Hey Jude’ was helping to launch the pop scene in Japanese culture, there was another social phenomenon going on in 1968 Japan.
To try to keep up with the remarkable construction boom happening in the country, leading diesel engine manufacturer Yanmar had the brainwave of putting one of its engines into a scaled-down hydraulic excavator.
The YNB300 was the result – a wheeled, self-propelled machine that went on to revolutionise the industry. And just like the Beatles – Yanmar CE’s mini-excavators are still proving a hit 55 years later.
Now firmly a global brand, the ViO35 (pictured above) and state-of-the-art all-electric SV17e are the latest iterations of a long line of innovative mini-excavators that Yanmar CE has launched down the years.
