Never heard of FWD? If you live outside the snow belt, you probably haven’t. Founded in 1908 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, their first vehicle was a four wheel drive car named the “Battleship.” I’m guessing four wheel drive in northern Wisconsin in the early 1900’s came in pretty handy. Military testing found all wheel drive successful, and soon FWD switched to making only trucks.
FWD trucks of this era were all built with a track width of 4′ 8 1/2″, so with just a change of wheels you were riding the rails. Early gearhead Harry Miller raced a FWD at Indy in the 1930’s.In 1963 FWD acquired Seagrave Fire Apparatus and started making fire trucks. FWD is best known for trucks, which are obviously very popular with municipalities for snow removal. That brings us to this example.
This baby is a 1968 FWD Tractioneer. It’s Cummins powered, Allison automatic equipped, and has a 10 foot dump bed. The front blade was estimated with a calibrated eyeball at 14 feet. All the hoist stuff on the side is for the 11 foot wing plow, designed to push the snow well off the highway and destroy your mailbox. Hydraulic lines run to the back would have been for a salt spreader. Driver comfort and chrome? Nope.
CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS OF THE MIGHTY FWD TRACTIONEER –
Neat.
I love a vehicle where form rides shotgun and function is driving.
I havent seen a FWD in many years…very cool toy!