Lifting the lid on trucks
QUESTION After a lifetime working in the road haulage industry, I’ve long wondered who invented the forklift truck? In 1917, Eugene Bradley Clark of the Clark Equipment Company designed and produced the world’s first industrial truck, the Tructractor.
Originally this three-wheel, gas-powered truck was intended simply to haul materials between production departments at Clark’s Buchanan, Michigan plant. But visitors to the plant quickly recognised its utility, and the company soon started producing models for sale.
In 1919, the Clark Tructractor Company was formed and a new plant was opened in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1922. After the Tructractor, Clark pioneered the first hydraulic platform truck in 1921, known as the Truclift.
Back in 1875, the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Co, established eight years earlier by Linus Yale and Henry Towne as the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company, broadened its scope from locks to materials handling. In 1920, Yale and Towne launched a new battery-powered low-lift platform truck, quickly followed by a range of highlift platform trucks and tow tractors.
Five years later, Yale produced the first electric truck that had raising forks and an elevating mast. The lift was by ratchet and pinion, not by hydraulics. The operator stood upright on two large, spring-loaded wooden blocks, which were used to change direction.
One of the original models (from around 1926 and said to be the oldest forklift in existence) can be seen at The national Fork Truck Heritage Centre at the Midlands Railway Centre in Butterley, Derbyshire. It is in full working order and is said to be very difficult to drive.
In 1924, Clark introduced the famous Duat, which was promoted with the saying, ‘It’ll do this; it’ll do that; it’s the Duat’. It was the first gas-powered, hydraulic tow tractor with 1,500lb of drawbar pull capacity. The development of the Duat led to the introduction of the Clarktor tow tractor in 1927, a gas-powered, four-wheel towing tractor with drawbar pull capacities up to 12,000lb. The Clarktor had drawbar pull ratings of 2,000lb and 2,600lb.
Another one of its models, the Clarkat, was used to pull trailers of freight and material and remained in production until 1982. Finally, in 1928 Clark manufactured the Tructier, the first hydraulic forklift that offered a hydraulic lift and frontwheel drive. The new forklifts surged in popularity in the late-Thirties upon the development of the standardised pallet.
J. B. Merchant, Nottingham.
QUESTION What is the most expensive hat ever sold at auction? THIS was one of napoleon’s famous bicorn hats. It was lot 89 in a sale of napoleonic artefacts from the collection of Prince Albert of Monaco, held in the ‘imperial town’ of Fontainebleau, south of Paris, in november 2014.
Lot 89 was the star of the show, in perfect condition and made of felt and said to bear the imprint of the napoleonic skull. The hat was lined with satin, and did not have a leather rim, because the ‘little general’ was allergic to leather.
The hat, expected to make €400,000, was sold for €1,884,000 (£1.5 million) to a South Korean industrialist called Kim HongKuk, the 57-year-old founder and chairman of the Harim Group poultry company.
He told journalists: ‘I have always held in high esteem napoleon’s challenging spirit that nothing is impossible, so I made the purchase of his hat to re-awaken entrepreneurial spirit.’
napoleon was said to have owned 120 hats, 19 of which are in museums around the world. Other belongings up for auction included the embroidered slippers napoleon’s son wore at his Christening and gloves napoleon left in his coach after the Battle of Waterloo. Strands of napoleon’s hair, his stockings, rifles, a diamondstudded sword, furniture and paintings, including a portrait of the Emperor by Paul Delaroche were also offered. Remarkably two of the hair clippings were bought — for € 10,000 each — by a watchmaker commissioned to produce special- edition watches for a napoleon enthusiast.
K. P. Stafford, Alresford, Hants.
QUESTION Has anyone been accidentally left ashore during a cruise stop-off? FuRTHER to earlier answers, in the Sixties my husband was one of the early pioneers of package holidays, and he and another travel agent sailed to Palma on the Andes cruise ship to promote holidays to Majorca.
Wooing hoteliers involved a long — and liquid — Spanish lunch, which naturally could not be hurried, so the two ‘missed the boat’. A launch was hired to chase the 27,000-ton vessel out to sea.
Incredibly, it did manage to halt the ship, though my husband and his colleague then had to board it by climbing up a swaying rope ladder while inebriated and clutching an armful of travel brochures. Worse, my husband couldn’t swim.
When later at dinner they were applauded, the captain decided their escapade should not go unpunished and charged them with organising a substantial collection for charity.
Jill ugo, London.