Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC .
Founded as the Dodge Brothers Company in 1900 to supply parts and assemblies for Detroit's growing auto industry, Dodge began making its own complete vehicles in 1914. The brand was sold to Chrysler Corporation in 1928, passed through the short-lived DaimlerChrysler merger of 1998–2007 as part of the Chrysler Group, was a part of Chrysler LLC owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equityinvestment firm, and is now a part of the Chrysler Group LLC which has an alliance with Fiat. Fiat has plans to evolve many Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep existing platforms and products into Fiat-Chrysler co-developed vehicles.

Dodge light trucks were initially based largely on their passenger cars , but later specific truck chassis and bodies were designed. Light- and medium-duty models were offered first, then a heavy-duty range was added during the 1930s and 1940s. Dodge developed its first four-wheel drive truck in 1934 — an experimental 1? ton for the U.S. Army, designated K-39-X-4(USA), of which 796 units were built in several configurations. Timken supplied driven front axles and transfer-cases, which were added to a militarized commercial truck. The Timken transfer case was the first part-time design, that allowed the driver to engage or disengage four-wheel drive using a lever inside the cabin. In spite of the limited 1930s U.S. military budgets, the ’34 truck was liked well-enough that the 1 1/2 tonners were further developed. Dodge built the U.S. Army further batches of 4WD 1 1/2-ton cargo trucks in 1938, 1939 and 1940. 1,700 RF-40-X-4(USA) trucks were procured in 1938, and 292 TF-40-X-4(USA) in 1939. All of these experimental Army 4x4s rode on a 143 inch wheelbase, and the RF-40 and TF-40 were the first to receive a Dodge engineering code in the 200 range (T-200 and T-201 respectively).
The Dodge WC series was a range of light 4WD and medium 6WD military utility trucks, produced by Dodge / Fargo during World War II. Together with the 1/4-ton jeeps produced by Willys and Ford, the Dodge 1/2-tons and 3/4-tons accounted for the bulk of light 4x4 trucks supplied to the U.S. Army in WW II – with Dodge building about half as many of these as the jeep. Contrary to the versatility of the highly standardized jeep, which was mostly achieved through field modification, the Dodge WC-series came in many purpose-built variants from the factory. The series included open- and closed-cab cargo and weapon carriers, command cars, reconnaissance vehicles, telephone installation trucks, panel vans, carryalls, ambulances and mobile workshops.
Âíåäîðîæíûå òðàñïîðòíûå ñðåäñòâà (Land Locomotion – Mechanical Vehicle Mobility LL-MVM) Home