Detas was founded in 1969 by Mr. Luigi Danieli, the founder of Danieli & C. which is today one of the biggest manufacturers of turnkey steel plants in the world, with the sole purpose of manufacturing internal combustion fork lift trucks. During Danieli family's presidency, the company designed and produced hydrostatic transmission driven fork lifts from 2 to 18 tons, while today the production is ranging from 1.5 to 5 tons.

The excellent design, the technical features, the overall performances and the reliability of its products allowed Detas to enter successfully the Italian market and gain a considerable market-share.

In the end of the 70's the demand of electrical trucks started to grow in Italy and among Detas customers, which resulted in the following major step taken by the company.

It was in 1984, when Detas bought out one of the most important electrical fork lift manufacturers in Italy called Robustus. Robustus started already in 1952 to build small tractors for lime-kiln applications and specialized in a later stage in electrical fork lifts from 1 to 5 tons.

Since 1984 the whole production of electrical and internal combustion trucks is carried out at Detas premesses.

The integration of the two companies, since then named Nuova Detas SpA, created the potential to market a complete range of internal combustion, that is diesel and gas and electrical fork lift trucks.

In 1986, Mr. Lucio Sechi, who was the general manager of a major Danieli sister company, took over and bought out Nuova Detas and is today its C.E.O. and major shareholder.

In the last decade Nuova Detas consolidated its position in the Italian market becoming one of the most important manufacturers of counterbalanced trucks in the country.

During this period the Company went through its most important restricting period: overall cost savings were obtained by turning from a 'fully manufacturing' to an 'assembly plant', which resulted on one hand in a considerable reduction of employees and on the other hand in a highly flexible production plant.

The completely new designeed range of trucks, with the most advanced technological and ergonomic standards, the use of first class, updated and world-wide known components (such as Perkins UK, Mannesman Rexroth Hydromatic Danfoss, Zapi and others) and the extensive quality control testing of lift trucks guarantee a high quality output and consequently a high reliability necessary to meet high customers demands and productivity levels.