LIEBHERR Construction Equipment Upcoming Auctions

About Liebherr

Liebherr is a globally recognized manufacturer of machinery and components for the construction, mining, material handling, and maritime industries, among others. The company is best known for its cranes, excavators, dozers, and wheel loaders, but it also manufactures concrete equipment, vertical drills, forestry equipment, and more.

Liebherr Products

Liebherr manufactures a range of earthmoving and construction machines, including wheeled, crawler, railroad, and pontoon excavators; wheel loaders and crawler loaders; crawler dozers and tractors; concrete plants, pumps, and truck mixers; pipe layers; and articulated dump trucks. The company’s mining equipment includes mining excavators, dozers, draglines, and mining trucks. Liebherr also makes components such as large-diameter bearings for tunnel-boring machines and machines to make gears.

In the material handling sector, Liebherr produces equipment for scrap or waste processing, as well as telehandlers and log loaders. The company sells piling and drilling rigs for deep foundation applications, including fixed and swinging leaders, and carrier machines for slurry wall applications.

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2024 Liebherr R 924 Litronic Crawler Excavator

Liebherr is also well known for its many types of cranes, including tower cranes, mobile construction cranes, and duty cycle crawler cranes built for continuous use. A more detailed overview of the company’s crane offerings is available on the Machinery Trader niche site CraneTrader.com.

Liebherr Milestones

Liebherr’s history began in the aftermath of World War II when much of Germany needed to be rebuilt. To help meet the enormous demand for construction equipment, Hans Liebherr expanded his parents’ building company to manufacture tools and machinery, forming Hans Liebherr Maschinenfabrik in Kirchdorf in 1949.

The same year, Liebherr invented the world’s first mobile tower crane, the TK10, designed to be erected on-site to speed up construction and reduce costs. In 1954, Liebherr’s burgeoning business developed Europe’s first hydraulic excavator, the L300, as a much lighter alternative to a disappointing rope excavator he once rented.

In the late 1950s, Liebherr opened a factory in Killarney, Ireland, to manufacture tower, container, shipyard, and specialized cranes for the British and North American markets. In 1956, the firm began to build machinery for concrete production and transportation, starting with a reverse drum mixer for on-site use. Innovation continued with the industry’s first hydraulic crane in 1959, the AK40, which had a lifting capacity of 6.6 tons (6 metric tons).

Liebherr Goes Worldwide

Liebherr expanded to South Africa in the 1960s, constructing its first facility outside Europe and furthering its international growth. Liebherr first established a U.S. presence with the founding of Liebherr-America in 1970 in Newport News, Virginia.

In 1977, Liebherr designed the world’s first all-terrain mobile crane, the 27.6-t (25-mt) LTM 1025, which allowed builders to use a crane in an off-road setting. The company followed up in 1980 with the first hydraulically driven, electronically controlled, duty cycle crawler crane. Liebherr began series production of its own diesel engines in 1984—continuing a longstanding practice of manufacturing components in-house, which started in the early 1950s with gears—and invented the proprietary Liebherr Computed Control (LICCON) crane control system in the mid-1980s.

Liebherr In The 21st Century

Liebherr built its largest crane to date in 2017: The HLC 150000 heavy-lift offshore crane can lift up to 3,307 t (3,000 mt) to a height of 558 feet (170 meters). In 2020, the company released its first all-electric concrete mixer trucks (the ETM 1005 and 1205) and the world’s first battery-powered crawler cranes (the LR 1200.1 unplugged and LR 1250.1 unplugged). In 2023, the company started on-site validation of four autonomous T 264 mining trucks in Australia.

Although founded in Germany, Liebherr’s worldwide headquarters reside in Bulle, Freiburg, Switzerland. Other Liebherr businesses include refrigeration, aerospace components and systems, gear manufacturing, and even hotels.

As of 2024, the family-held and family-managed Liebherr Group has 50,000 employees in more than 50 countries, with manufacturing facilities in Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, the U.K., the U.S., and others. In addition to the Virginia factory for large mining trucks, Liebherr’s 14 U.S. locations include retail and rental stores, service centers, and aerospace service centers.

Find The Right Liebherr Equipment For Sale

Among MachineryTrader.com’s new and used Liebherr equipment for sale, you’ll find Liebherr cranes, excavators, crawler dozers, wheel loaders, material handlers, and other scrap processing/demolition equipment, and more for sale. Popular model groups available on the site include Liebherr L 550, L 566, and L 586 series wheel loaders; LTM 1090 series all-terrain cranes; PR 736 series crawler dozers; and R 914 and R 936 series crawler excavators.

Visit CraneTrader.com for a large selection of new and used Liebherr cranes for sale, including all-terrain, crawler, harbor/marine/barge, tower, truck cranes, and more.