MF & Fermec

[Gavin Phillips]

That articulated Backhoe must be rare as hens teeth

Probably so, although it really is a re-badge of someone else's design (the Italian company of FAI springs to mind), there was also a Moxy 565 that was certainly a Kramer Allrad design. Even JCB trialed an articulated 4CX design at one point which would have been nice to observe.

Not popular due to cost perhaps?

I never saw many Fermec's around where I live. A local farm had an 860 PowerShift, and a local building contract an 865 Elektron. Both very nice looking machines I must admit, although the thing that stood out to me the most was how much larger the front tyres were than those you see on a typical JCB/Case of the same era; massive!

I do recall plenty of MF 30E front loaders being used by the local council; usually with some sort of compressor on the rear for use with jackhammers. They would usually be accompanied by a van holding the work tools, that towing a Smalley/Powerfab! If only I'd had a camera then! But MF backhoes? Can't say I can think of any, around here it was always the Ford/JCB/Case machines which were the dominant ones. Seeing anything else was an exception.

[Hugh Jaleak]

The MF/Fermec machines were quite popular in this area, a local owner/operator ran various 180 models over the years, and a 450S some years back. Deejak Builders ran a number of machines, from 50B's through to the Fermec machines before they went into receivership, also Crawshaw Robbins who did a lot of water work ran MF's that replaced Ford 550's.