Peterbilt Image Peterbilt Motors is a manufacturer of medium and heavy-duty Class 6 though Class 8 trucks headquartered in Denton, Texas. The Peterbilt is a subsidiary of PACCAR.
Founded in 1939, Peterbilt operates manufacturing facilities in Madison, Tennessee (1969), Denton, Texas (1980), and Sainte-Therese, Quebec. From the early 1960s until the mid 1980s, the company was based in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California, with its headquarters, parts department, and main plant all in Newark, California. The Newark plant closed in 1986; headquarters moved to Denton, and engineering moved to Denton in 1993. In the early part of the 20th century, Tacoma, Washington plywood manufacturer and lumber entrepreneur T. A. Peterman was faced with a lumber logistics problem.
He couldn't get freshly felled log timber from the forest to his lumber mill quickly, or efficiently.
In order to develop forest assets, it would be necessary to improve upon the contrived methods of the day-floating logs down river, or the use of steam tractors, and even horse teams. Peterman knew that if he could develop the then nascent automobile technology and build trucks, he could go a long way towards solving his problem. To this end, he was rebuilding surplus army trucks, improving the technology with each successive vehicle.
Shortly thereafter, he purchased the assets of Fageol Motors of Oakland, California in 1938 in order to supplement his need for custom built logging truck chassis.
Fageol had gone into receivership in 1932. By 1938, the Great Depression had driven the value of the assets to nearly zero. Peterman acquired the defunct truck manufacturer and began to produce customized chain-drive trucks for exclusive use by his timber concern. In 1939, he began to sell his remarkable trucks to the public. T. A. Peterman died in 1945.
His wife Ida, sold the company to seven individuals within the organization (management) less the land. They expanded it into a serious producer of heavy-duty trucks. In 1958, Ida Peterman announced plans to sell the land to develop a shopping center. The shareholders, not having the desire to invest in a new manufacturing facility, sold it to PACCAR .
PACCAR (Pacific Car & Foundry Co), then primarily a manufacturer of railroad freight cars, was looking to expand into truck manufacturing.
PACCAR, which had acquired the assets of Kenworth in 1945, was already an up and coming player in the heavy truck market .
Peterbilt is a PACCAR Company, traded publicly on the NASDAQ as PCAR.
Peterbilt history. Heritage. Tmeline
Kind of wondering why the Pete didn't use a Knuckey rear that was built in San Francisco, just across the bay from Peterbilt , instead of one built 500 miles away in LA. The Maxi rear had its fans I guess. Hug shipped some trucks 2000 miles west to have that rear installed.
The Fageol brothers, Frank, Louis and William, were involved in an astonishing number of gasoline-fueled enterprises in the first quarter of the last century.
Twin Coach was an American vehicle manufacturing company from 1927 to 1955, based in Kent, Ohio, and a maker of marine engines and airplane parts until the 1960s. It was formed by brothers Frank and William Fageol when they left the Fageol Motor Company in 1927.
Theodore Alfred “Al” Peterman was in the lumber business in Tacoma, Washington, in the first half of the 20th century, but he was having trouble seeing the loot for the trees. Rather inconveniently, they all grew in forests in the middle of nowhere, and America’s road infrastructure was still not in place. Peterman did the usual thing at the time of floating them downriver, but the up-and-coming automotive industry quickly made the old ways look inefficient. To grow with the times, he decided to take surplus army trucks and re-purpose them for hauling logs to the mills. Peterman bought ailing truck company Fageol in 1939 for $200,000 and created the first Peterbilt trucks. They looked a lot like Fageol machines but were made to Peterman’s specifications. These were chain driven with a 6x4 configuration, using aluminum to save weight. Peterman wanted to go for quality over quantity. Peterman died of cancer that same year, at the relatively young age of 51, and never saw the company grow to the status it has now enjoyed for several decades. His widow, Ida, assumed ownership of the company, which she soon sold to five of Peterbilt’s managers for $450,000. Having kept the name is a testament to how well regarded these trucks became in such a relatively short time.
Paccar hace su aparicion en la historia de Peterbilt cuando en 1958 la senora Peterman decide crear un centro comercial en el lugar donde funciona la planta y la unica solucion para que Peterbilt continuara su camino era construir una nueva. Esta operacion demandaba la consecucion de dos millones de dolares, deuda que Lloyd Lundstrom, el presidente de la compania y proximo a su jubilacion, no quiso contraer. La empresa se puso en venta y el 24 de junio de ese mismo ano Paccar, propietario de Kenworth, adquirio Peterbilt Motors.
The 353 replaced the model 351 SBFA
PETERBILT INTRODUCES ALL-WHEEL DRIVE FOR MODELS 337 AND 348
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