The Hyster 120 is a lift truck from Hyster’s materials-handling range and appears in the video below. Hyster was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1929 and is today part of Hyster-Yale Materials Handling. No Wikipedia article covers the 120 itself, so the page concentrates on the company behind it.
Hyster 120 at a glance
| Maker | Hyster Company, Portland, Oregon |
|---|---|
| Type | lift truck, materials handling |
| Model designation | Hyster 120 |
| Company founded | 1929, as the Willamette-Ersted Company |
| Founding place | Portland, Oregon |
| Owner from 1989 | NACCO Industries |
| Owner from 2012 | Hyster-Yale Materials Handling |
| Name origin | from the loggers’ call ‘hoist ’er’ |
| Plants | Illinois, the Netherlands, China, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Northern Ireland, South Africa |
| Engineering department | Irvine, Scotland |
| Video | Hyster forklift 120 |
No Wikipedia article covers the Hyster 120: the facts here come from the English Wikipedia article on Hyster Company, a single source, together with the video title.
History of the Hyster 120
The 120 in the video
The Hyster 120 is one of the plain-numbered designations in the site’s older records, and the video below shows the truck. Hyster is an American manufacturing company specialising in forklifts and other materials-handling equipment, so the 120 belongs to the lift-truck side of the business; the company also built compaction machinery and road-rollers, a line that was eventually absorbed into Bomag America/Compaction America, now known as HYPAC.
1929: Willamette-Ersted becomes Hyster
Hyster started in 1929 as the Willamette-Ersted Company in Portland, Oregon. The name is said to derive from the Pacific Northwest logging trade: a logger would call ‘hoist ’er’ when a load of lumber was ready to be moved, and according to the Hyster Company web page the phrase became a synonym for Hyster trucks. From the 1950s through the 1980s the company also had a comprehensive line of compaction equipment, competing with Raygo until European and other brands became common.
1989 and 2012: two changes of owner
NACCO Industries bought the company in 1989 and made it part of NACCO Materials Handling Group. In 2012 the materials-handling business was spun off as Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc., which continues to market products under the Hyster brand. Distribution and support are organised around major world regions: North America; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific. The home office remained in Portland, and manufacturing spread to Illinois, the Netherlands, China, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Northern Ireland and South Africa, with a specialist engineering department in Irvine, Scotland.
Design and features
- Plain model number: the 120 is written as a whole number, unlike the metric 1.50 and 2.50 trucks.
- Lift-truck stock: part of the forklift and materials-handling range that made the Hyster name.
- Video: the truck is shown in the clip below.
- Global support: distribution arranged around five world regions.
- Compaction heritage: Hyster was also a prominent builder of earth, garbage and asphalt compaction machinery.
Hyster 120 versions
- Hyster 120: the truck covered on this page.
- Lower-numbered siblings: the Hyster 90 and Hyster 60.
- Higher-numbered sibling: the Hyster 300.
- The wider range: covering both metric trucks such as the Hyster 2.50 and plain-numbered ones.
The Hyster 90 and Hyster 300 sit either side of the 120 in the number sequence. All Hyster trucks are in the Hyster collection.
Video: Hyster Forklift 120 for Dustin
Video on YouTube.
Sources
- Hyster Company, English Wikipedia: company history, ownership, plants, name origin
