The Classic Machinery Network

I worked for hoveringham gravels based at finningley near doncaster,and we used to deal with umo plant hire.
We opperated about three belaz dump trucks at that time and we had frequent visits from the russions.
I will post a picture when i get the hang of this forum.

Here is a photo of one of our russion dumpers.

One more taken out of a magazine.

I found this and I know it an old post ,The driver of the Low Lowder out of Doncaster was Bernard Flockton.The Plant manager at Doncaster was Gerry Southgate followed by Ronny Blundell( the Riddler he was ex Dowsetts) Gerry was at Castleford before thy moved depot to Pilkingtons Glass Yard at Kirk Sandle I was a tractor fitter for them Spent most of mt time on the DET 250 there was a Smaller tractor about a D6 size it used to be on the pit top at Brodsworth

I have a stack of the sales sheets from the UMO days, a man I used to do a load of work for (on Bulk M/S) had some coins tied into the UMO empire, they even had little pickup trucks.

Here are a couple I saw during my travels a few years back.........

Dowsett Belaz ....

It is some years since the last post on UMO Plant, but I have just come across this site and thought I would add to the background. I was the UK Parts Manager for both UMO Plant and UMO Belarus (the tractor and agricultural arm) from 1977 to 1980, based at Letchworth. All Belarus business was done through Letchworth via a network of dealers all over the UK, but UMO Plant, although also based at Letchworth also had a major Depot in Kirk Sandal, Doncaster and for a while, a satellite depot in Glasgow. At the time I was there most plant sales were of the Kraz 256b dump truck and latterly some UAZ 452 4WD vans/small trucks. When I left in January 1980, the administration was from a smart new building in Blackhorse Road, but I believe the business closed in the early to mid eighties. I was amazed to pass by the site earlier this year to find the building empty and boarded up but well maintained and still showing "UMO HOUSE" over the entrance. Does anyone know who owns it now?
During my time there I saw no direct evidence of KGB activity but we often wondered if any of the British staff were planted by our own security services to keep an eye out for anything untoward.

Hi Partsman79
I'm in Canada now but before that we were Belarus dealers in Wales, so dealt with umo from 92 ish up until 2000 when we came here, If my memory serves me correct the tractor business left there in 98/ or 99 just before we came here, it moved to a farm somewhere else before it finished completely, and Malcolm brown a Belarus dealer up north started importing them instead . i think Lovekoff who was the last Russian there stayed and worked as a property manager for a while, and the yard was rented to a trucking company, and the stores and workshops was rented as storage to another company. i went back in 2004 for a look and it was like that then but the offices weren't boarded up.

We still keep in Contact with Denis peacock , who was the service manager for years there, and one of the sales guys from the later years, Mervyn spokes, who worked for gates at Baldock, and writes for tractor magazines once in a while.. Was Gary Fowler a parts guy when you were there, that guy didn't need a computer for part numbers and bin locations it was all in his head.

I remember some obscure parts couldn't be found in the books, and certain dealers made him mad so he would say if you don't get the number you can't have the part. Those dealers called us and we had to talk to him. He just used to say oh yeah it's in this bin, and tell us to say to the other guys if they hadn't made me mad I'd of sent them the part ! He knew exactly what was going on . There was a guy called Dave, A taller thin guy, he'd been there from the plant days to he'd worked on the trucks another guy I think was Dick he'd been there a while to I think they had some down on the aberfan disaster clean up if my memorys right of what they said as they went to service them.

We had some fun times dealing with Russians and some of the other Belarus factory machines they tried selling, later on we had all kinds of machines from other companys as well but it was pretty well game over by then for UMO and declining sales.. I think they or somebody else imported another dump truck somewhere about 1995 or a bit later it was a white one, I saw it parked in UMO's yard at a dealer day. Somewhere I think there is a picture here in our collection. Regards Robert