Birth of the Road Milling Machine
A Revolution on the Road – The Seventies
The first successes with a concrete shattering machine, tenacious tinkering, and the search for new solutions follow. The early 70s brings “a modern monster that even makes stones soften,” according to a headline in a daily newspaper – the road milling machine is born. Milling is adopted as the standard method in invitations to tender and rapidly gains acceptance in road rehabilitation.
Cold milling machines mark the next stage of development after hot milling, since they mill the asphalt without prior heating for the first time at the end of the 70s. But that isn’t enough for the company founder. He was looking for a way to completely rehabilitate the surface layers – his vision was to reuse the damaged road surface right on the spot. Both hot recycling and later cold recycling caused a sensation in the industry. Thanks to the modern, environmentally friendly process, road construction companies operate extremely profitably.
WIRTGEN technologies were in demand – in Germany and beyond. The medium-sized company began to expand internationally by founding its own subsidiaries throughout Europe. The company’s machinery was used on a daily basis overseas – in countries like the United States, Brazil, China, and India.
