Venturo Manufacturing Inc, Caytec Ltd and the Mobile Hydraulic Equipment Corp have agreed to cooperate in marketing and distributing the Italian-made Fratelli Ferrari knuckle boom loader cranes in North America.
By coming together they hope to present a single American face for F.lli Ferrari cranes rather than be seen as a series of dealers selling foreign cranes.
Ohio-based Venturo, an established manufacturer of stiff boom cranes with more than 120 dealers, will handle the marketing. Caytec, based in Calgary, Canada is one of Ferrari’s best agents. Jon Williams of Mobile Hydraulic Equipment Corp in California is a knuckle boom crane specialist. Inventories, skills and responsibilities are to be shared between the companies and each has its own sales territory – Caytec has the north west, Mobile Hydraulic Equipment the south west and Venturo the east.
Venturo marketing manager Brett Collins says the annual North American knuckle boom market is about 1,800 units. Around 40 of Venturo’s dealers have already expressed an interest in selling the Ferrari product.
While some hurdles remain, “where’s the winch?” for example, acceptance of knuckle booms in the US is said to have spread from the east coast at least as far west as Chicago or the Mississippi river. Williams reckons that “two thirds of all knuckle booms sold in the US go east”.
