For those who don’t watch the programme, Gold Rush is a hugely popular US Reality TV show on The Discovery Channel, watched by 300 million viewers in 130 countries. It follows the efforts of family-run gold mining operations in Canada and the Northern USA. 2019 marks Gold Rush’s tenth anniversary and Volvo Construction Equipment, who provide vehicles for the show, decided that it was time to celebrate!

Ian Harvey, Product Marketing Sales Enablement Director at Volvo CE, Shippensburg USA, reached out to KAB to see if we could help them to create a one-of-a-kind Gold Rush branded excavator, to showcase their new machine, the EC200E. Sultan Lohar, KAB’s Industrial Designer, worked with our prototype team to come up with a really exciting proposal, based on our new SCIOX seat.

 
The seat, based on the current Volvo Deluxe Excavator seat (M-Series) was fitted with high-back SCIOX foams, and we worked with ATD to produce custom black leather covers with gold feature stitching and embroidery, including the stitched ‘autographs’ of three of the show’s stars. The multi-adjust armrests were also wrapped with embroidered leather for a super-premium look. To make the seat extra-special, we even sent the plastic parts of the seat to be ‘hydro-dipped’ - a process usually used for motorcycle helmets and custom car parts.
 
Volvo has recently fitted the seat into the new excavator, which also has Gold Rush branding, and the vehicle is currently on its way around the USA on a tour of Volvo dealerships. The vehicle will also feature on a coming episode of Gold Rush, so look out for it on TV. If you get a chance to see this unique machine, be sure to post your selfies with #GoldRushExcavator. 
 
The excavator will end its tour in Las Vegas for the ConExpo trade show next March, where one lucky viewer will be able to win the excavator to take home! Click here if you want to see the vehicle in action, or maybe even enter the competition!