Humbaur's success story continues into the next decade

Four decades of Humbaur, four decades of trailers from Gersthofen. The family-owned company from Bavaria is one of Europe's leading trailer manufacturers, producing around 60,000 trailers per year at its site in Gersthofen near Augsburg. Over the last 40 years, the original 10-man operation has grown into a fully-fledged medium-sized company with over 600 employees and sales in the hundreds of millions. On 1 October, the limited company will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

With a factory agency for agricultural machinery, Anton Humbaur laid the foundation for one of Europe's leading trailer manufacturers in Donauwörth in 1957. At that time, the product range included trailers, ploughs and grain mills. In 1980, the company moved to Gersthofen and moved into the newly built warehouse with office buildings. A year later, the first car trailers were sold here. Anton Humbaur imported them from Italy and adapted them for the German market. But the ambitious Swabian entrepreneur wanted more: in 1984, the company began producing its own car trailers. His son Ulrich Humbaur had also joined the company in 1982, and on 1 October 1985, the time had come: Humbaur GmbH was born.

Over the years, Humbaur car trailers became increasingly popular, and the product range expanded steadily. In 1998, the company struck a chord with trailer customers by starting to produce horse trailers. These remain one of the highlights of the Humbaur trailer family to this day and represent the premium standard in horse transport.

In 2001, the company premises were relocated to Mercedesring 1 in the town of Gersthofen and have since met all the requirements of a production site of the future. The Humbaur product range also continued to move towards the future. In 2002, the trailer manufacturer introduced its heavy-duty range. In 2003, the Humbaur factory outlet, the trailer centre in Gersthofen, was opened and has since been the central point of contact for Humbaur fans in the trailer manufacturer's home town. Two years later, production at the production site was also expanded and a second hall with state-of-the-art production technology was added, covering over 23,000 m².

The next milestone followed in 2016. That year, Humbaur introduced its FlexBox vehicle bodies for dry, chilled and frozen freight with the Dry, Cool and Freeze series.

In 2020 and 2022, the company celebrated impressive production figures, with the 1,000,000th trailer built in 2020. trailer, a golden three-way tipper, and in 2022 the 1,111,111th trailer, a PEGASUS horse trailer.

Last year, Humbaur entered the camping market segment with its multifunctional MODO box trailer, which was developed in collaboration with recreational vehicle manufacturer LMC Caravan GmbH & Co. KG.

Acquisition of semi-trailer manufacturer KÖGEL from Burtenbach

In 2009, Ulrich Humbaur acquired one of Europe's largest truck trailer manufacturers, and since then, the two companies have been covering the needs of the entire trailer market. The brands have been managed separately from the outset, but form meaningful synergies and, for example, recently appeared together once again at BAUMA 2025 in Munich.

Looking to the future

What does the next 40 years hold? The trailer manufacturer's vision is clear. ‘We will continue to focus on tradition and innovation. We can look back with pride on an impressive company history, which we will continue to build on,’ explains owner Ulrich Humbaur. But the company has no intention of resting on its laurels. ‘We realise that we must and want to move with the times, and will therefore continue to focus on proven quality with innovative processes and product features in the future. We are convinced that this is the right path to take, and we are investing in it.’

Trailers in anniversary design

To mark this special occasion, Humbaur has developed two anniversary designs for two of its best-selling products, a box trailer and a refrigerated trailer. Both are a tribute to the long tradition of car trailers. Both models feature a retro look reminiscent of the early generations of trailers. They will be available from October at all participating Humbaur dealers.

Image material

Image material relating to Humbaur's 40-year history can be found here.

Please cite Humbaur Ltd. as the source of the images.