Caterpillar® History

Many attachments were added to the tractors in order to make the machines more useful. Early-on, snow plows were affixed to the front of the tractors to open roads in winter. Manufacturers such as LaPlant-Choate affixed earth-moving blades on the front of tractors - the blades commonly referred to as "bulldozers". Other manufacturers, such as Robert G. LeTourneau, manufactured scrapers to pull behind the tractors, for earthmoving purposes. Winches were manufactured by companies such as Carco and Willamette-Ersted to be affixed to the rear of tractors to facilitate the skidding of logs in lumbering operations. And gasoline-fired internal combustion engines were modified to burn butane, a much cheaper form of hydrocarbon fuel than gasoline. Caterpillar Tractor Co. made none of the apparatus for its tractors mentioned in this paragraph.

In road construction and maintenance, the horse-drawn pull-grader was quickly adapted for tractor work. One of the companies manufacturing graders for this purpose was the Russell Grader Manufacturing Company of Minneapolis. In fact, Russell had modified one of its grader products to affix to the front of a Caterpillar 2-Ton Tractor, to create a self-propelled "Motor Patrol". In 1928, Caterpillar purchased the Russell company. The product offerings after Caterpillar's acquisition remained self-propelled graders, tractor-pulled graders, and elevating graders. The so-called "self-propelled" graders at that time were simply attachments to the front of "crawler" tractors. The new self-propelled graders were the Ten Motor Patrol (affixed to a Caterpillar Ten), the Fifteen Motor Patrol (affixed to a Caterpillar Fifteen), the Twenty Motor Patrol (affixed to a Caterpillar Twenty), and the Twenty-Eight Motor Patrol (affixed to a Caterpillar Twenty-Eight).

In April 1931, Caterpillar introduced its all-new "Auto Patrol" rubber-wheeled grader. Late that same year, the Auto Patrol was renamed as the No. 9 Auto Patrol. This machine formed the basis for all motor graders produced by the earth-moving industry.

Model (fuel) Year started Year ended
Auto Patrol gasoline 1931 1931
No. 9 Auto Patrol gasoline 1931 1932
No. 7 Auto Patrol gasoline 1932 1933
No. 11 Auto Patrol gasoline 1932 1940
No. 10 Auto Patrol gasoline 1933 1940
Diesel Auto Patrol diesel 1934 1937
Diesel No. 10 Auto Patrol diesel 1936 1940
Diesel No. 11 Auto Patrol diesel 1937 1940
Diesel No. 12 Auto Patrol diesel 1938 1940
No. 12 Motor Grader diesel 1939 ?
No. 12 Motor Grader gasoline 1939 1942
No. 112 Motor Grader diesel 1939 ?
No. 112 Motor Grader gasoline 1939 1947
No. 212 Motor Grader diesel 1939 ?
No. 212 Motor Grader gasoline 1939 1947
No. 12E Motor Grader diesel 1959 ?
No. 112E Motor Grader diesel 1959 ?
No. 14B Motor Grader diesel 1959 ?
No. 14C Motor Grader diesel 1959 ?
No. 112F Motor Grader diesel 1960 ?
No. 14D Motor Grader diesel 1961 ?
No. 16 Motor Grader diesel 1963 ?
No. 12F Motor Grader diesel 1965 ?
No. 14E Motor Grader diesel 1965 ?

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