Posted by Gordon (the Scottish one) on Sunday, January 21, 2001 at 4:00PM :
In Reply to: Need History on Tucker SnowCats ??? posted by The Dodge Boys on Sunday, January 21, 2001 at 3:35PM :
With due apologies to having only vague PW relevance - Gordon.
The first thing I can find that Tucker did any real production on was the prototype T26 E1 snow tractor, he took this through several prototypes (E1, E2, E3) and then handed it to Allis Chalmers,(or maybe it was taken by the DOD) The production T26 E4 is the M7 snow tractor I'm looking at in Canada.
The first thing that looks anything like our type of Sno-cat was what seems to be the 423, the two track two ski thing. It was originally made with a Mercury engine, presumably the flathead V8, and then with the Dodge engine and 3 speed box. The natural development was the four track version the 443, and then the 743 series big Cat.
Putting dates to any of these things is very difficult. Practically the only thing I can date is the 222 sno-kitten which ran from '57 to '62 and that's only because Don Michalsky told me. The Tucker brochure I have on the home page only shows 222, 423, 443, and 743 types, so I would have guessed that in the '57 to '62 period that's all they made. I have three manuals here, an original 443 manual, a photocopy of a Kitten manual (from Don) and a photocopy of a general manual covering 300-400-500-700 series. I can't date any of them because Tucker never bothered to put a print date on the damn things, but since the 300 wasn't featured in the brochure I'd have said the 300 would have to be post-'62, and that's backed up by the fact that one of the options is a 70HP jeep engine which I'd take to be the Gladiator engine.
So pretty much any type of Power Wagon has a Tucker equivalent, albeit with the IND 6 engine, and they built stuff using the humbler 1/2 ton small Dodge and larger V8s too.
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