2008 being the year of the 50th anniversary of the Bobcat skid-steer loader, Bobcat will be hosting a number of celebratory events in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) during the year.

In addition, a special 50th anniversary logo has been created to ensure that this industry landmark is very prominent at every industry show at which Bobcat is participating in Europe, Middle East and Africa this year.
Neil Woodfin, president, Bobcat EMEA, said: “Fifty years ago, Melroe Manufacturing Company, the forerunner to Bobcat Company, introduced a compact front-end loader that evolved quickly into the M-400, the world’s first true skid-steer loader. The M-400 later adopted what has become the world famous ‘Bobcat’ brand and was a starting point for the global compact equipment industry.
“In the last half century, the compact loader market has continued to grow to reach sales worldwide of over 100,000 units annually in 2007.  Whilst the company has gone through many changes over the last 50 years, one thing hasn’t changed: Bobcat’s commitment to outstanding quality, workmanship and innovation that has helped to maintain its leadership, so that today, one in every two skid-steer loaders sold is a Bobcat machine.”

Anniversary competition
To celebrate the 50th anniversary, Bobcat has launched a new competition called ‘What Did Bobcat Do For Me?’ in which the company is asking customers from all over EMEA to send in stories about how they believe Bobcat equipment enabled them to work better, smarter and faster. 
“Throughout the last 50 years, the success of Bobcat has been built on the passion and enthusiasm of the people, not only in the company, but also the customers who use Bobcat products worldwide.  Our 50th anniversary competition will reflect this passion and enthusiasm among our customers,” Woodfin said.
On the 1st of October 2008, a panel of judges selected by Bobcat EMEA will decide on a winning entry for the Grand Prize which will be a five-day excursion for the winner and their partner to the USA to see the home of Bobcat in North Dakota. There will also be attractive prizes for second and third place runners-up.

Bobcat in the EMEA market
At the beginning of the 1960s, further improvements were made to the design of the Bobcat M400 skid-steer loader, resulting in the launch of the M-444 model in 1963 and, in the same year, the first M-444 skid-steer loaders arrived in the European market. 
From 1963 to 1965, demand for Bobcat skid-steer loaders in the European marketplace was met by products imported from the USA.  Beginning in 1965, Bobcat skid-steer loaders, first the M-444 and later the M-600, were produced under licence in Europe for local markets, initially by Luff & Smith in the UK, then by Beltrami in Ravenna, Italy, and later by Scheid Maschinenfabrik in Aumenau, Germany.  From 1975 onwards, it was decided to concentrate production of all Bobcat skid-steer loaders for EMEA back in Gwinner in North Dakota, USA.
Over the past five decades, Bobcat products have changed the way the world works.  Today the Bobcat product family includes not only skid-steer loaders but also compact tracked loaders, compact excavators, telescopic handlers and an ever growing range of attachments for all of these machines.
The diversification of the product range has happened progressively.  Particularly in the last 20 years, the company’s operations in EMEA have played a key role in the transformation of Bobcat from a producer of skid-steer loaders only into the world’s leading compact equipment manufacturer.
In the EMEA region, the company’s passion and customer commitment has been reinvigorated by the development of a new fully integrated structure based in Europe capable of defining, designing and manufacturing machines, products and services to meet the specific needs of local markets in EMEA.
In 2007, this culminated in the opening of the first new Bobcat manufacturing plant outside the US at the heart of the EMEA region at Dobris, south of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Together with the existing telehandler plant at Pont-Château in the Loire-Atlantique region in North-West France, the initial $32 million investment covering the Dobris facilities forms part of a prominent new manufacturing footprint in Europe for Bobcat, which the company intends to use to produce over 80 per cent of the products it markets and sells in the EMEA region by the end of 2008.