An exhibit of antique machinery on display at the Caterpillar Visitors Center includes the very first Cat to roll off the line.
The tractor, in full working order, carries the serial number EXP 0000-L. The Peoria Journal Star reports that the marking indicates the first vehicle off the California production line in 1925. It followed the merger of Caterpillar's predecessors.
[caption id="attachment_84362" align="alignright" width="300"]
The tractor, in full working order, carries the serial number EXP 0000-L[/caption]
It and other pieces at the museum in Peoria are on loan from Matt Veerkamp. His family has a collection of 125 tractors and other machinery begun as part of a construction business.
Karl Weiss, vice president for earthmoving equipment, Caterpillar said: Weiss asserts "Our brand was built with machines like this."
The most striking detail that set this first Cat apart as an early ancestor is the white paint, nickel trim, and undulating Caterpillar logo.
The tractor is the first official piece of the Caterpillar Tractor Co formed by the merger of the now iconic brand’s predecessors, CL Best Tractor Co and Holt Manufacturing Company, in 1925.
“What you see here is the first Caterpillar made by Caterpillar,” said Matt Veerkamp, whose family loaned the historic specimen and a handful of other rare antique tractors to the company for a yearlong exhibition.
[caption id="attachment_84363" align="alignleft" width="415"]
The first Caterpillar made by Caterpillar now owned by Matt Veerkamp who did the restoration[/caption]
“We’ve grown our collection to 125 pieces at home, and what you see here is the cream of the crop,” Veerkamp said. “These pieces are really hard to come by, so what you see is very rare.”
Among the other tractors on display is a Best 25 Tracklayer, one of only 300 manufactured and seven known examples still in existence. Adding to its rarified pedigree, the Tracklayer has been restored to operating condition.
The Veerkamps, who began collecting antique machinery as part of a construction business in California, retrieved the Best 25 from an abandoned mountaintop mine in their home state. They had to airlift it in pieces onto a trailer to haul it away for restoration. “It took us five minutes to get it done with a helicopter, but it took us months of planning,” Veerkamp said.
Weiss said: “It never ceases to amaze me the strength of our brand, and our brand was built with machines like this."
The machines from the Veerkamp collection will remain on display through June 20, 2018, and will be joined tommorrow by additional pieces of antique equipment during the Steamboat Days Festival. Those machines, from collectors in Peoria and throughout the Midwest, will be on display on Main Street outside the Caterpillar site.
