Wolfgang Baumann and his brother Rolf Baumann founded Baumann in 1965 in Buehlertal, Germany.

The beginnings in Germany were not easy, especially the search for qualified skilled workers for production. In 1969,  Wolfgang Baumann, then at the age of 32, decided to build a new production facility far from the Black Forest. Initially this was to be based in Austria, but since Austria was not part of the European Economic Community, he soon started looking for a suitable location in Italy.

At that time Italy was known for mechanical engineering expertise. With the help of the Chamber of Commerce, Wolfgang visited 32 areas, from Turin to Trieste. None of the towns convinced him 100%, because, he said, he wanted to find at least one equally beautiful location as the Black Forest.

Starting his journey home to Germany, he remembered his father’s stories about the beautiful Lake Garda and stumbled upon Cavaion. Speaking no Italian, he stopped at a petrol station and asked the attendant if he knew a place to stay. The attendant, who could speak French, managed to communicate with the young German man. It turned out that the gas station attendant was also the mayor.

The next day he viewed the local areas and realized that the logistics in Cavaion were very good. The Brenner motorway was already underway, as was the airport in Verona. Vocational training opportunities as well as the universities were, and remain, excellent.

On Good Friday 1969 the property was bought and the decision was made to set up the production site for all Baumann sideloaders in the former peach plantation. There was no access road (now the Via Palesega), there was no electricity or water supply. Mr. Baumann built the road and the infrastructure which were later gifted to the community.

The 3 founders were Wolfgang and Rolf Baumann, each with a 40% share, and technical manager, Adolfo Gazza with 20%. Adolfo was not new to the sideloader business, having previously worked for another manufacturer. Rolf Baumann stayed in Germany and managed the sales and customer service team there.

Just 8 months after the land was acquired for the factory, the building was complete and the first truck (serial number 78 – the combined ages of the 3 founders) sold, built and delivered. By the end of the year there were 18 employees with an average age of 23 years.

In the 1970s, the Baumann product was sold around the world – the US, Australia and Germany were already important markets, but Scandinavia and Switzerland became key.

The young company was struggling with 28% interest rates and so Wolfgang Baumann did what came naturally, he founded his own bank with a few other industrialists, which today still exists as a Confidi guarantee consortium. This was also key to building a second production hall in 1979, an important building block to increasing production capacity.

Sales exceeded 100 units in the early 80s, as strong sales in both the US and Russia (before the fall of the Berlin Wall) boosted sales closer to home. Wolfgang Baumann himself often travelled to the States to help build sales. With no US manufacturer, he saw it offered great potential and incredibly interesting market.

In 1986, Wolfgang was appointed ‘Cavaliere Del Lavoro’ from the Italian Foreign Minister for his Services to Industry.  It is extremely rare for a German citizen to receive such a prestigious award in Italy.

Both orders and employees continued to grow, as did the factory itself. A third production hall was added and over 50 employees were working on 150 to 200 units per annum.

Adolfo Gazza sold his share of the business to the Baumann brothers but remained on as technical director, a position he held until 2010. In 1996, a young mechanical engineer, Riccardo Bove, joined and later took over management of the technical department.

In addition to Baumann sideloaders, from 1999 to 2007 we also produced machines under the Irion name. In 2000, Rolf Baumann bought the Irion brand rights, but this symbolised a conflict between the strategic direction of the companies in Germany and Cavaion, and the agreements between the Baumann brothers. Eventually the two businesses were split, with each brother taking 100% ownership of their respective companies.

Irion was a big name, but the naming rights and a complicated spare parts business alone did not compensate Rolf for the purchase price. Baumann and Irion vehicles were differentiated somewhat – to give the Baumann sales and Irion sales technical distinctive features – for Cavaion this was a doubling of the series. 

As the factory went from strength to strength, with new products, another production hall and Wolfgang being made an honorary citizen of Cavaion, the operation in German began to falter. An investor from outside the industry got involved, perhaps hoping to sell the business back to Wolfgang. Instead, the business passed to a competitor, eventually leading to a legal dispute over the brand name which took over a decade to resolve.

Despite the internal issues, sales continued to thrive and industries beyond the original timber and steel sectors began to see the benefits of sideloader technology. Soon we were applying our minds to the handling issues of plastics, concrete, automotive, rail, energy, pre-fabricated buildings and many other sectors.

By the end of the decade, the company had an integrated new design and production system, a highly efficient spare parts operation, market-leading online support and award-winning new innovations, including a truck powered by hydrogen fuel cell and 120-volt electrics. A radical new outreach system was also on the horizon…

We invented a completely new system for extending the mast in 2011. With this invention, registered as a patent worldwide, not only controls the extension and retraction of the mast more efficiently, but also provides more accurate and sensitive retraction and extension. VRS (Variable Reach System) as it became known, was the biggest change in sideloader development in almost 50 years.

Baumann UK was also founded in 2015, within 8 years the UK had become our second largest market. We added yet another hall to cope with the increasing demand for larger capacity trucks, as well as our airport PRM machine, PaxLift, a sector we had worked in for over a decade.

A raft of environmental and design awards were added towards the end of the decade as we gathered in the newest hall to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Appropriately enough, the 50 year anniversary of the business also coincided with the completion of the largest sideloader ever built – the 50 tonnes capacity, GXS500.