Mecalac’s 8MCR combination “crawler skid-excavator” has a new fan in Bryan Furnace, an operator and the host of The Dirt.
“This thing is awesome,” he says on this episode, which you can click on above.
Not only that, he adds, it has the potential to “totally revolutionize the 8-ton excavator market.”
Bryan spent a day in Mecalac’s 8MCR putting it through its paces and found himself amazed at its versatility.
It operates well as both a skid steer and an excavator, and it gives operators so many choices for handling different conditions and tasks that he wonders why anyone would choose a traditional 8-ton excavator after trying out this model.
Pluses include its quick speed, tiny footprint and flexible boom. Unlike a traditional excavator, you don’t have to move it around as much for digging and unloading and other tasks. You can also use its “mammoth” skid steer bucket for digging, or you can switch over to a regular bucket.
But it also performs well as a skid steer for grading, loading and unloading, and running attachments to the point that Bryan believes you’d leave your traditional skid steer in the yard a majority of the time.
To find out more about why Bryan believes the 8MCR has “the potential to change the industry” – and watch him operate it – check out this episode of The Dirt.

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00:00 - Can the 8MCR Change the Industry?
00:24 - Mecalac 8MCR Overview
01:27 - Skid Steer Mode
05:11 - Excavator Mode
10:36 - In-Cab Operation
14:05 - Maintenance
16:21 - Room for Improvement
17:51 - 8MCR Final Verdict

Video Transcript:
Bryan Furnace:
Today we're talking about the MECALAC 8MCR. I actually had a chance to run several machines in the MECALAC line, but the one that really stuck out to me with its potential to change the industry is the 8MCR.
If you come into the job site thinking this is going to act just like an excavator, you're probably going to be a little disappointed simply because it's not an excavator because guess what? This is a combination machine. This is an excavator and a skid steer in one and nine times out of 10 when you have a combination machine, that generally means it does both of its jobs, very, very mediocre and doesn't really excel at anything. The 8MCR is the total opposite. I would say it can do 85 to 90% of everything an excavator or a skid steer can do, and then it can do a ton of extra stuff that you would never dream of doing in a skid steer or a mid-size excavator.
For instance, because of the way you can configure this boom, you can take it straight up in the air with the bucket turned around and you can have a wheelbarrow that will go two to three stories tall. Now, what's really cool about the fact that you can use it as a skid steer is you can zip around in this machine. While it looks like a midsize excavator, it tracks along at the speed of a CTL and that's quick. It is shockingly quick when you get in this thing for the first time.
Skid steer mode is probably the least used mode on this machine. While it's super convenient for pick and carry operations like shuttling material across your job site and things like that, you lose a lot of your functionality because you can't really use it as an excavator almost. You can still use it as an excavator to some degree. While you're in skid steer mode, your controls are going to work like a skid steer. Your left hand is going to be for the movement of the machine, so forward, reverse and left to right. Your right-hand joystick is going to be boom up, boom down, and then bucket curl and uncurl. Outside of the funkiness that you're running what appears to be an excavator, it really doesn't take you long to mentally flip over into true skid steer mode and you just start running it like a skid steer.
I was shocked at how well this machine graded in skid steer mode to the point that I was very quickly able to put down a nice finished grade like I would an RTV 450 skid that we use on our job site every day. It was very intuitive to use and because of the boom configuration, the interesting thing is you get to pick which section of the boom the machine uses to raise and lower the bucket, which means for the first time you can have a radio lift and a vertical lift skid steer in one package. That's pretty unique and it's going to take some experimentation before I really kind of wrap my head around all the ways we could use this, but in theory you could absolutely use one boom section for your vertical lift to do all of your augering for holes or maybe you're in a tight space and you need to go straight...