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New Holland Construction History

Release Date: Dec-07-2016
In 1947 Mario Bruneri produces the first hydraulic excavators and founds SIMIT, acquired by Fiat in 1970

A leader in light-medium duty earthmoving and construction equipment, New Holland Construction has its foundations in the machinery developed for those sectors by predecessors Fiat, Ford and New Holland. 

New Holland was founded in 1895, when Abram Zimmerman opened a blacksmith shop in the Pennsylvania, USA, town of that name. To expand his business, he began retailing stationary engines to power farm machines such as animal feed mills, later developing a freeze-proof engine to withstand low temperatures. The New Holland Machine Company grew to later develop a number of machines suited to both farm and construction use, including the Superboom skid-steer loader. In 1947, New Holland was acquired by Sperry Rand Corporation.

Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino) had been founded in Turin, Italy, in 1899 by a group of engineers and investors including Giovanni Agnelli. The first vehicles it built were cars, but the firm soon diversified into heavier goods, such as trucks, buses and tractors. In 1931, Fiat produced its first crawler tractor, while sixteen years later, Italian Mario Bruneri produced his first hydraulic excavator and founded SIMIT, which is acquired by Fiat in 1970.

In the meantime, 1966 saw the production of the first Ford backhoe loader, while in 1972, Sperry New Holland, until then primarily a farm machinery firm, produced its first skid steer loader, with a unique Superboom arm design. Fiat’s construction machinery interests grew considerably, and in 1974 it entered into a joint venture with the construction equipment arm of the American Allis-Chalmers company, later buying out the latter’s share.

Ford, which had made tentative moves in the 1970s to extend its construction business into excavators and wheel loaders, refocused on backhoe loaders during the next decade. Having in 1986 purchased New Holland from Sperry, in 1990 Ford decided to sell its Ford New Holland farm and construction equipment interests, and in 1991 reached agreement with Fiat Group for the sale of Ford New Holland to Fiat Geotech.

The merger created a new entity, N.H. Geotech, and it was decided to group the Ford, Fiat and other products under a neutral, globally-recognisable brand, New Holland, with the former Ford and Fiatagri names gradually phased out but the familiar former Fiatagri leaf logo retained. New Holland later extended its product offering with the 1998 acquisition of O&K, a German company with a history in construction and mining equipment.

In 1999, Fiat Group acquired Case Corporation, merging it with New Holland NV, its existing construction and farm machinery business, to create CNH Global, retaining distinct Case and New Holland construction machinery brands, products and dealer networks. In 2005, Fiat merged its Fiat, Fiat-Kobelco, O&K, FiatAllis and New Holland construction businesses under the New Holland Construction brand.

Along with other non-automotive divisions, in 2011 New Holland Construction becomes part of the new Fiat Industrial, Fiat Group’s capital goods division, following the demerger of its non-automotive businesses from Fiat S.p.A. In 2013, the business was transferred to CNH Industrial, following the merger of Fiat Industrial and CNH Global N.V.

New Holland Construction machines include skid-steer loaders, backhoe loaders, wheel loaders, dozers and graders.

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