R.G. LeTourneau Heavy Equipment: Photo Gallery & Mechanical Drive Era 2 Book Set

Robert Gilmour LeTourneau, the inventor of earthmoving machines, secured nearly 300 patents over the course of his life. During World War II, about 70 percent of the earthmovers and engineering vehicles were his machines that were invaluable to the Allied war effort. With outstanding photography, this overview of 90-years-plus of manufacturing features the company's earliest earthmoving equipment introductions in 1921, all the way up to today's ultra-large mining equipment introductions. This companion book to the three previous publications - R.G. LeTourneau Heavy Equipment: The Mechanical Drive Era 1921-1953, R.G. LeTourneau Heavy Equipment Photo Gallery: The Electric-Drive Era (1953-1970), and Modern LeTourneau Earthmoving Equipment since 1968 - includes updated information and all new images of the LeTourneau enterprise.

In the history of heavy equipment development, no single man’s name is more respected or revered as that of R. G. LeTourneau. Robert Gilmour LeTourneau is considered by many to be the dean of high-speed mobile earthmoving equipment. His designs of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s laid the fundamental groundwork for many of the earthmoving machines we see on a daily basis. Self-propelled, rubber tired scrapers, bulldozing blades, and rippers were all conceived under his engineering genius in the quest for moving material at the lowest-cost-per-yard. The time period of 1921 to 1953 saw many of R. G. LeTourneau’s most important heavy-equipment introductions, such as the Carryall and the Tournapull, and the initial development of the electric drive wheel. This first volume of fantastic machine creations covers the early years up until the sale of the company to Westinghouse in 1953. Standard production, specials, and experimental machines in rare archival images, some in print for the very first time, help showcase what made R. G. LeTourneau so important in the heavy equipment industry.