ORGANISERS of Italy’s biggest annual construction equipment exhibition would not allow Liebherr to show its MK 80 mobile tower crane because it was not a ‘tower crane year’.
Tower crane manufacturers have an agreement with the organisers of SAIE, held each October in Bologna, that tower cranes are only exhibited every second year. This year the tower cranes were absent.
Liebherr, however, had assumed that its MK 80 would be regarded as a mobile crane since the unfolding self-erector style crane is carried on an all-terrain carrier. It is, Liebherr naturally insists, a mobile crane.
At 9.25am on the first day of the show Liebherr Italia director Giorgio Lupi received a fax from SAIE director Dr Filipponi stating: ‘We invite you to take the crane out of the exhibition’ as tower cranes were not being exhibited this year. The crane, which had been sold to Bologna rental company Tagliavini, had already been on sit for five days during set-up.
Liebherr responded by covering the crane with a huge sheet while it consulted its lawyers. On the third day of the show it decided to uncover the crane, but received a second warning that it would not be allowed back to future SAIE exhibitions, and so decided to cover the crane up again.
Lupi believes that other tower crane manufacturers had pressured the show organisers into taking action. ‘There is a small mafia operating here,’ he said.
