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About Caterpillar

Caterpillar really needs no introduction, being the most recognizable and pervasive brand of heavy machinery in the world. Headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, Cat is the top manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and gas engines, and other equipment used across numerous industries. Its power generator sets, dozers, and other machinery have contributed to some of modern history’s most significant projects, including the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Apollo 11 space mission.

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Caterpillar D3 Crawler Dozer

Tractors With Tracks

Caterpillar’s origins involve two men more than a century ago. Benjamin Holt built his first steam-powered tractor in 1890. In 1904, on Thanksgiving Day, he put tracks instead of rear wheels on one of his company’s steam tractors. The result, said to be the first commercially successful tracked tractor, reminded onlookers of a caterpillar in motion. Holt trademarked the Caterpillar name in 1910.

That same year, C.L. Best founded his own tractor business in Oakland, California, having worked for his father’s tractor company which was acquired by Holt in 1908. Best developed gasoline-powered, track-type tractors such as the Best 60 (1919).

Yellow Iron

In 1925, Holt and Best merged their businesses as the Caterpillar Tractor company with Best as chairman. Caterpillar’s initial lineup of five tractors combined machines from both Holt and Best, but the new collaboration yielded the Model Twenty track-type tractor in 1927.

The largely gray Caterpillar tractors changed to Hi-Way Yellow in 1931 to be easier to see on road construction sites. The color would change again in 1979 to the iconic Caterpillar Yellow we know today.

Diesel Developments

An engine prototype known as “Old Betsy” led to the first Caterpillar diesel motor, model D9900, and the Caterpillar Diesel Sixty Tractor in 1931. That same year, Cat released its Auto Patrol motor grader, facilitated by its acquisition of the Russell Grader Manufacturing Co. three years prior.

Cat started to adapt its diesel engines for marine use in 1938. As with crawler dozers and motor graders, Cat entered this market after customers had already started to retrofit its products, this time into boats and ships.

More Milestones

Caterpillar released a new type of dozer blade in 1945, a pull-type scraper in 1946, and the first self-propelled wheel tractor-scraper in 1950. In 1952 it launched the first integrated track loader, the No. 6 Shovel. The Cat D9 tractor dozer with an innovative turbocharged diesel engine debuted in 1954.

Cat’s first off-highway truck, the 769, arrived in 1962, and its first hydraulic excavator, the 225, appeared in 1972. Five years later, the company introduced its influential D10 dozer with a new triangular-track elevated sprocket system.

The 416, Cat’s first backhoe loader, came in 1985. In 1998 the manufacturer thought smaller with compact wheel loaders, mini excavators, and related attachments.

Cat introduced an electric drive in 2008’s D7E track-type tractor. Ten years later, it did the same with the D6 XE, the first high-drive dozer to be electrically driven.

Find The Right Caterpillar Equipment

MachineryTrader.com is the place to find new and used Caterpillar construction equipment and attachments. The long list from the manufacturer includes asphalt pavers, cold planers, compactors, crawler and wheel dozers, dump trucks, excavators, pneumatic-tire and cushion tire forklifts, generators, loader backhoes, material handlers, motor graders, motor scrapers and pull scrapers, off-highway trucks including articulated models, pipelayers, skid steers, crawler loaders, skidders, telehandlers, tractors, water trucks, and wheel loaders, among others.

Popular model series include Cat CS56 compactors, Cat D6T dozers, Cat 320 excavators, Cat 140 motor graders, Cat 745 off-highway trucks, Cat 259 track skid steers, and Cat 950 wheel loaders.