Company founder Irvine Bell establishes a small enterprise providing engineering and equipment repair services to the pioneer farming community in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. One of his earliest and most successful inventions was the self-loading trailer for the sugarcane industry.

Searching for a better way, Irvine Bell invents a three wheeled loading machine. The Bell Tri-Wheeler’s revolutionary design is granted patents worldwide. Over time an improved design and an attachment range see the machine adapted for the forestry and construction industries. 

Two years after entering the Wheeled Loader market with a machine designed for Africa’s harsh operating environment, the company enters the competitive ADT market with their first Articulated Dump Truck, the B25A. To meet growing local and export demand, Bell commissions a new production facility in Richards Bay, South Africa.

Bell Equipment launches its innovative B40 Articulated Dump Truck, to target heavy duty mining applications.

Bell Equipment acquires the rights to distribute John Deere Construction and Forestry Equipment in southern Africa under the Bell brand. This complements the alliance with Kato Works in Japan, formed three years earlier, to sell a branded Excavator range. In the same year Bell Equipment is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Bell Equipment forms a strategic alliance with John Deere’s construction and forestry arm. John Deere begins to brand and distribute Bell ADTs in North and South America. The launch of the Bell D-series ADTs in 2001, which sets a new standard of excellence, sees this arrangement and a similar alliance with Hitachi in Australia flourish. 

Following on the successful launch of the Bell D-series ADTs in 2001, the company launches the world’s largest ADT and latest flagship, the Bell B50D.

The Bell Construction Tractor concept is successfully introduced into North America and a strategic alliance with Liebherr doubles product distribution efforts in Europe.

An assembly plant is opened in Germany to provide greater flexibility and better management of logistics when delivering ADTs to the important Northern Hemisphere markets.

The company celebrates the production of the 10 000th Tri-Wheeler unit and also receives the Technology Top 100 Award for Overall Technology Excellence: Large Enterprise.

Bell Equipment celebrates its 50th year in the manufacturing industry and announces plans to further strengthen its business partnership with John Deere by a series of arrangements that would see John Deere assembling Bell ADTs in North America for that continent and Bell Equipment manufacturing the Deere Tractor-Loader-Backhoe and range of Front End Loaders for the southern African and international markets.