View attachment 282035 1978 Cat 941B that lives on the family’s farm. It works in concert with a 590 Super L and a recently acquired 953C that both retired from the first contractor-of any sort- I worked for. Louis still owns his 1977 Cat 235-bought new when my dad was a 17 year old working for him-and it still comes out of its slumber when it’s time for some big hoe ramming.
I know I’m over a year removed from cgraham’s post, but I’m partial to TLBs, Case machines in particular, and crawler loaders, preferably Case and Cat. I built quite a few entire sites with a high lift and then brought in utilities with a backhoe as a one-man operation. I think it’s sort of an old-school approach to things, or at least in the southeast and midwest where I started out. A lot of newer outfits are doing exactly what you want to do and getting a mini and a skid steer, but those two machines flat out won’t have the raw power or weight to put behind a task that your 580 will. They also can’t run a mile and a half from one end of a job to another to do some cleanup work or toe in a main in five minutes. It’s just a tradeoff that for what I do isn’t worth it, I don’t own a mini but I own quite a few backhoes.
Edit: Mastermind has a cherry MF300, those things are pretty slick (read: fast) if you can move your feet around fast enough. The double decelerators in line with the steering clutches are... Interesting to say the least. The two speed powershift transmission is cool too.