(By Greg Rourke) – Forklifts and I go way back. In the 70’s I worked in a tube warehouse, third shift. We had pneumatic tire 12,000 pound forklifts that were shockingly fast. Naturally we raced them, proving that leaving us alone without adult supervision was a bad idea. If the floor was wet you could get into a very nice four wheel drift. If you got close enough to the competitor in front of you we would get the forks under the counterweight and lift his steer wheels off the ground in the turn, sending him into racks of steel tubes. I’m sure we caused thousands of dollars in damages. Ah, my misspent youth.
Enough of that, then. Here we have the Airtrax Sidewinder forklift. Did anyone ever tell you to not reinvent the wheel? These cats didn’t listen and went ahead and reinvented the wheel. The forklift in fact goes sideways without any high speed shenanigans. I’ve moved enough junk around crowded spaces I can see where this would be very useful. Unfortunately not enough folks saw the need for one of these. They were introduced in 2000, manufactured for 7 months in the mid 2000’s, and went belly up in 2008. Another outfit bought the patents and had another whack at it with even less success. All we have now is a company that sells parts and used Sidewinders.
