Linde Material Handling celebrates a milestone at its main plant in Aschaffenburg, Germany

In 1959, the first forklift truck built by Linde Material Handling (MH) in Aschaffenburg left the production hall. 55 years later—on 29 August 2014—Europe's leading truck manufacturer celebrated a special anniversary at its main plant: Staff on the production line assembled the 750,000th truck — an electric counterbalance truck with a load capacity of five tonnes. The future owner of the truck is the BMW Group, which will use the Linde E50—equipped with cab, heating system, BlueSpot and 2.30-metre-long fork arms—for loading and unloading lorries in its components plant in Wackersdorf, Upper Palatinate.

Framed between the first Linde forklift truck (Hubtrac) and the 750,000th in Aschaffenburg built Linde forklift truck - Christophe Lautray, Chief Sales Officer of Linde MH, symbolically handed over the key to Robert Limmer from automobile manufacturer BMW Group (from left): Roland Hartwig, Vice President Operations Aschaffenburg, Sabine Neuß (COO Linde MH) and Christophe Lautray (CSO Linde MH), Robert Limmer und Thomas Kufner (BMW Group) as well as Theodor Maurer, CEO Linde MH.

The first model built in Aschaffenburg and brought to market was the Hubtrac — the forbear of all Linde trucks. To begin with, the number of this truck model produced was rather modest, amounting to a few hundred trucks in the first few years — of which about one fifth were already being sold outside of Germany. But demand increased year after year: The truck models—driven by a diesel engine and featuring a load capacity of 2–2.5 tonnes—became extremely popular due to their precise, efficient hydrostatic gearbox, the dual-pedal controls and the central control levers.

According to Sabine Neuß, Chief Operations Officer (COO) Linde Material Handling, the company will invest a substantially amount of money in the Aschaffenburg production site in the coming years.

In 1970—a year after management had completely abandoned tractor production within the space of a few weeks—well over 2000 trucks were already being produced every year. Growth accelerated when, at the beginning of the 1970s, the first electric counterbalance trucks were added to the production programme of the company speeding up further as the model range was extended in the following years. In 1982, the range of diesel trucks already included four different series, with models featuring a load capacity of between 1.2 and 7 tonnes. On the electric forklift trucks, the load capacity ranged from 1.2 to 3 tonnes.