Caterpillar D-8 1933-1974 Photo Archive
Caterpillar D-8 1933-1974 Photo Archive
ITEM E193
Including Diesel Seventy-Five & RD-8
By Bob LaVoie
The history of some of Caterpillar’s biggest earthmovers of the period are detailed in this new Photo Archive. Start with the diesel 75, the great-grandfather of today’s D-8, and trace the changes made to the D-8 into the 1970s.
More than 120 detailed factory photographs and illustrations show how technology changed drastically in those early years for mass dirt movers. Included are the 1H, 8R, 2U, 14A and others, as well as company sales literature and WWII-vintage photos. Many photos show attachments and equipment produced by Caterpillar and others for use with these earth-moving giants. As a bonus, a list of D-8 tractors and predecessors is provided, arranged by model, serial number and year.
Softbound, 128 pages, 128 photos, 10.25'' x 8.5''
As a boy growing up in Minneapolis in the late 1940s and early 1950s, my summers often included a week devoted to enjoying the reconstruction of the avenue on which I lived. Most likely, the Caterpillars that did the work were not as large as the D-8s, Diesel Seventy-Fives, and RD-8s featured in author Bob LaVoie’s account, but to this young boy they seemed hardly less impressive. The book’s 121 black-and-white photos and illustrations offer a marvelous array of these Caterpillars performing a variety of tasks that showcased their capabilities in agriculture, road building, logging, and earth moving. Other illustrations include publicity-oriented factory photos and artists’ renderings of specific D-8 variations. In addition, advertisements and sales brochures—one of which features multiple pages of a specific brochure, including a page devoted to the specifications for the Diesel Seventy-Five—complement the “at work” photographs. As with early Photo Archive titles, captions are either nonexistent, as with the sales brochure, or minimal, ranging up to about 26 words. The goal of the book was to offer photographs and the captions made available by Caterpillar’s business resource center. Despite these limitations, the photos and illustrations offer much eye candy for any Caterpillar fan.
Book Review by Robert Gabrick
