Forklifts, Machinery Guide

Five fantastic forklifts

The market for forklifts in Australia is huge and sometimes it's hard to know what to look for. Here are five of our favourites, as reviewed by our team of professional machinery testers.

COMBILIFT C4000 MULTIDIRECTIONAL FORKLIFT

Combilift C4000 multidirectional forklift
Ireland’s Combilift finds needs in the market and plugs them with innovative solutions and it’s hit the target again with the C4000 multidirectional forklift.

SINCE its beginning in 1998, Irish company Combilift has been churning out innovative and indispensable materials handling vehicles that get into places you wouldn’t expect.

The logistical handling of long loads has always presented headaches, especially when it comes to extracting the freight from racking and manoeuvring it around a warehouse or a yard and onto a truck. You ended up with something akin to trying to taxi an A380 down a supermarket aisle. The problem was solved once it was recognised that the trick was to turn a wide load into a long load …

 

CROWN MPC 3000 FORKLIFT

Crown MPC 3000
Crown’s MPC 3000 Series turns forklift design on its head, delivering a truly multi-purpose series of trucks specifically suited to order picking.

Up until this truck, I’d never before tested a Crown product before. And for weeks in the lead-up, the old jingle “There is nothin’ like a Crown for pickin’ it up and puttin’ it down” kept running through my head.

The test day was even more exciting as I was not prepared for the design of truck presented to my long-time photographer/videographer buddy Barry Ashenhurst and me.

Here was a truck that had the steering wheel and controls at what is normally the rear of a truck, and the mast and fork tynes at what is normally the front. The design is like driving a side-by-side ATV with a tray on the back…

 

TOYOTA 8FBE20 ELECTRIC FORKLIFT

Toyota 8FBE20 electric forklift
Toyota’s diverse 8FBE series proves the biggest player in the forklift market is showing no signs of slowing down.

They say a change is as good as a holiday.

After spending a lot of my recent time test-driving container-lifting reach stackers, diesel-powered all-terrain forklifts and fat, hefty 16-tonne beasts, seeing the Toyota 8FBE series forklifts was like a playdate with a matchbox toy.

The Toyota facility out in Dandenong, Melbourne, is a seriously big place, housing all manner of machines, big and small.

 

 

ENFORCER ROUGH TERRAIN 2.5-TONNE FORKLIFT

Enforcer rough terrain forklift
The Enforcer Rough Terrain 2.5-tonne forklift has all that’s needed plus a nimble, high-stepping way around obstacles.

For anyone requiring a rough terrain forklift, cost versus performance requirements is a constant juggling act.

Do you really need the fully enclosed air-conditioned cab? The four-wheel drive? The high-tech start-up procedures? The hydrostatic transmission? What is essential and what simply adds to the capital cost?

The Enforcer Rough Terrain forklift hopes to fill a niche in a market …

 

SANY SCP160C CONTAINER FORKLIFT

Sany SCP160C
With mega forklifts like Sany’s SCP160C, operators no longer need to brave the elements while at work.

Container forklifts sure have come a long way.

Gone are the days of operators exposed to the elements and suffering their shifts no matter how hot or cold the operating conditions.

Operators no longer have to prove their toughness by surviving the elements.

Modern trucks have a fully enclosed cab that provide real comfort during a shift and that sure isn’t a bad thing …

 

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