Birmingham Show to Host Tyre Munching Panther

In the past T&A has reported on a cheetah snacking on tyres in a Cambridgeshire backyard – see our November 2008 story for details of this surreal occurrence – and now we’ve caught wind of a panther heading in our direction. This particular creature also chomps readily upon the black rubber objects, yet there is no cause for concern….rather than being a zoo escapee, the panther in question is a boon for the tyre recycling industry.

The Evashred Panther, to use its full and correct name, is the largest industrial shredder ever to be built by New Zealand based company Evans Engineering. The company, who is represented in the UK by Ecosystem Ltd, is shipping a Panther unit to Britain for exhibiting at September’s The Recycling and Waste Management Exhibition in Birmingham.

This is the first time a Panther shredder has been sent overseas “We’ve got ongoing sales for our smaller units, but this is the first time we’ve taken our biggest machine out of New Zealand for promotion,” sales manager Neil Rees told New Zealand’s Dominion Post newspaper. “It’s the first time we’ve taken a machine to a trade fair like this. The sheer size of it is a factor, of course.”

The Panther weighs a hefty 3.5 tonnes, is 4.5 metres long and stands more than 2.5m high. According to information printed in the Dominion Post, the unit is driven by two 40-horsepower motors with 42,000 normal cubic metres of torque, and is designed to munch upon truck and car tyres. Yet according to Rees, the Panther is a versatile beast: “It’s set up to shred passenger and truck tyres but it can be configured to shred any product.”

Two Evashred Panthers are built simultaneously at Evans Engineering’s New Zealand facility, and the UK bound unit’s twin has already been sold to a local company for around NZ$220,000 (£85,000).