Few companies have the fan base enjoyed by the yellow excavators, perhaps hitting a height when a single by Nizlopi (The JCB Song) reached number one in December 2005.
A sell-out calendar the same year, featured women in flesh-coloured bodysuits dangling from the machinery's prongs.
The company, established by Joseph Cyril Bamford (hence JCB), seemed to be going from strength to strength.
But in 2008 and 2009 1,684 jobs were cut as the the construction industry was badly affected by the credit crunch and rising raw materials prices.
By 2012, things were looking brighter for JCB as it posted a record profit of Â£365m, opened a Â£63m factory in Brazil, and announced a doubling of trade in Africa. UK employees were given a Â£500 Christmas bonus and a three per cent pay increase.
In 2013, the company announced plans for 2,500 new jobs.
But just a year later the company cut 150 jobs, and last September a further 400 jobs were lost after a "dramatic" slow down in world markets.
Joseph Cyril Bamford began his business in a rented lock-up garage in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire in 1945.
He used a second-hand welding set and some surplus military equipment to make tipping trailers for farmers to hitch to the new generation of petrol-driven tractors.
In 1950 the company moved to a former cheese-making factory in nearby Rocester - where JCB is still based.
In 1952, machines were first made in yellow - a colour now synonymous with the brand.
In 1963, the design classic JCB 3C was born. The company said "it took backhoe performance to new levels".
The 1970s and 80s saw more new concepts, and in 1990 the world's first fully suspended, high-speed draught tractor was produced.
Two JCB diesel engines powered the JCB Dieselmax to the diesel world land speed record in 2006, and the millionth JCB machine was built in 2013. It was coated in special celebratory silver paint.
A limited edition backhoe has been produced to mark the company's 70th anniversary.
JCB, Britain's best-known digger-maker, has reached its 70th - or platinum - anniversary.