Sometimes a guy just has to go with flights of fancy, and today is one of those for me. This particular flight started while I was at a client location, where I saw the coolest thing – one of the sales guys had a metal scale model of a 55 meter Schwing! Now, you have to know that I am a long-time Schwing aficionado to understand why I was so excited about this. I mean, how can you not love a machine that can pump concrete up to the sixth floor of a new building?
As hard as it is to believe, some of you probably don’t even know what a Schwing is. If you haven’t already guessed, a Schwing is a brand of concrete pump (the other major manufacturer is Putzmeister, if you can believe it!). You see them on building sites or working on highway overpasses. Furthermore, many of them are leased. When my kids were younger, we would play a game of seeing how many Schwings and Putzmeisters they could find when we traveled. I still keep an eye out for the various models wherever I go, and eagerly await new product announcements.
I have not always been fascinated with Schwings, though. Although I worked construction when I was younger, my first exposure to Schwings was not on a site, but in a financing context, and it was love at first sight.
We were discussing TRAC leases in one of my classes. Since trucks can be the subject of a TRAC lease, and Schwings housed on a truck, my students wanted to know if the pump qualified to receive TRAC treatment. My conclusion was that no, a TRAC lease was not appropriate for a concrete pump even if it was on a truck, due to the great disparity in costs between the pump and the truck. A TRAC lease can be written on the chassis, but not the pump.
Getting to see so many different kinds of equipment is one of the things that I find fun about being in the equipment leasing industry. There are large numbers of wild and crazy equipment types out there for me still to explore. None, however, that will ever compare to the Schwing. I mean, what other equipment gets mentioned in the movies and on late night TV? As Wayne and Garth would say, “Here’s a schwing to you, Claudia Schiffer!
do you think Tracs to a zero payment are acceptable? I know of several financial institutions now offering this type of trac structure.
Posted by: Joe | October 6, 2006 9:09 AM | Permalink to Comment