Our History
The transit mixer in Australia is our family history.
From the ‘Tumblebug’ at Glebe Island to today’s Brisbane factory, Cesco’s lineage runs through every chapter of Australian premixed concrete, because our predecessors wrote most of them.
The Lineage
Seven names. One workshop tradition.
Through mergers and acquisitions dating back to the WWII era, Cesco traces its ancestry through the firms that built and refined the Australian transit mixer.
- Fowler Wood
- Fowler Rex
- Challenge Cook
- Howard Engineering
- Forbes Engineering
- Rheem Australia
- Cesco Australia
1939 to Today
Eight decades, machine by machine.
1939
Premixed concrete arrives in Australia
The first Australian premixed concrete plant opens at Glebe Island, Sydney, served by the ‘Tumblebug’ mixer. Concrete no longer has to be batched by hand at the job; it can be mixed at a plant and carried to the pour.
1944
The inclined drum
Inclined drum mixers appear, carrying 2.5 cubic yards. The geometry that still defines the transit mixer (a tilted, rotating drum) takes hold in Australia.
1946
Australia’s first transit mixer
Fowler Wood Engineering, the first name in Cesco’s lineage, builds Australia’s first transit mixer: a 3 cubic yard machine with open-mouth discharge. Every Cesco mixer since is a descendant of this build.
1952
The first ‘Challenge’
The first ‘Challenge’ 6 cubic yard machine is built, doubling the capacity of the 1946 original as premixed concrete takes over Australian construction.
1950s
The Snowy Mountains Scheme
Australia’s great post-war engineering project becomes the proving ground for the truck mixer. The specialised blade design and the presses used to form it are perfected on the Snowy, an innovation that still underpins Cesco’s pressed blade system today.
1996
Cesco Australia
Cesco Australia purchases the business from Southcorp/Rheem, carrying the unbroken lineage forward under its own name. Today Cesco Australia Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zicom Group Limited, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange as ZGL.
2013–14
The 11m³ semi-trailer mixer
Working with partner BTE (Bulk Transport Equipment), Cesco develops an 11m³ semi-trailer mixer, delivered to Hanson Concrete, one of the most recognisable names in Australian construction.
Today
Still building. Still in Brisbane.
Cesco manufactures mixers and barrels in Brisbane under ISO 9001 quality endorsed systems, with workshops in Brisbane and Melbourne and service centre partners in every state and New Zealand. Eighty years on from the first transit mixer, the trade is the same: machines that mix, built properly.
The Story Continues
The next chapter is your fleet.
The same engineering team that carries this lineage designs and builds today’s range, and stands behind every machine in the field.
Talk to Cesco
One call. Every state covered.
Mixer sales, barrels, parts or a breakdown: our Brisbane and Melbourne workshops and service partners across Australia and New Zealand have you covered.
1300 MIXERS(1300 649 377)Service Partners
- Sydney NSW Johns Motors Services · 02 9790 3777
- Adelaide SA Marleston Engineering · 08 8443 6766
- Perth WA Precedence Engineering · 08 9328 4818
- Hobart TAS Briar Banks Engineering · 03 6268 1605
- Auckland NZ MIMICO · +64 9 640 0340