This week, in honor of our country’s Independence Day, we want to celebrate a couple of brands we service that remain owned by American companies. The first brand we’ll cover is Caterpillar. You can visit their website for a complete timeline, but we’ll take you through just a few of their highlights as it relates to parts we carry.
What Can Be Remanufactured? Find Out Here
A Brief History
Caterpillar was incorporated when Holt Manufacturing Company and C.L. Best Tractor Co. merged in 1925. The company had five types of tractors – the 2-Ton, 5-Ton, and 10-Ton which Holt Manufacturing Company produced and C.L. Best Tractor Co. brought the Thirty and Sixty models over. This merger happened almost 40 years after Benjamin Holt built his first combined harvester in Stockton, California.
Their machines were powered by a variety of sources – from steam to gasoline to diesel – but in 1972 Caterpillar introduced their first hydraulic machine, the 225 model excavator. One year later, they began a remanufacturing plant in Bettendorf, Iowa. Remanufacturing continues to offer a plethora of opportunities to dealers, distributors, and operators as well. One publication recently did a study on aftermarket parts, showing that many dealers are losing sales on service parts because independent distribution businesses are able to compete in terms of quality and price.
Regardless of where parts were purchased, many large projects across the world used Caterpillar machines in order to get the job done. Two of these jobs happened in the 1990s – the work on the Three Gorges Dam in China in 1993 as well as work on the Kansai International Airport in Japan during the following year. Currently, the company is headquartered in Deerfield, IL after announcing the move last year. They have a visitor center in Peoria, IL – the location of their previous headquarters. They are continuing to sell high, beating expectations in 2017 and showing rising demand, fending off competitors early in 2018.
Proud Service
Here at Loader Parts Source, we are glad to be able to offer thousands of different parts for various Caterpillar models, such as a gear pump for the 242D model above. As we grow, we plan to increase our product offerings and improve the service we offer to skid steer operators around the world. Our desire is to provide fast, easy, and fair service to all hardworking skid steer operators. Please contact us with any feedback.
Photo edited by Loader Parts Source staff, Caterpiller 242D Photo courtesy of Pixabay user Ricobino.
