Megauzine - Peterbilt Truck

Peterbilt Motors Company;
is a manufacturer of medium- and heavy-duty Class 5 through Class 8 trucks headquartered in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1939 Peterbilt operates manufacturing facilities in Denton, Texas (1980), and Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec. From the early 1960s until the mid 1980s, the company was based in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California, with its headquarters, parts department, and main plant all in Newark, California. The Newark plant closed in 1986 with all manufacturing consolidated at its facility in Denton; in 1993 headquarters and engineering also moved to Denton.
In the early part of the 20th century, Tacoma, Washington plywood manufacturer and lumber entrepreneur T.A. Peterman was faced with a lumber logistics problem. He could not get freshly felled logs from the forest to his lumber mill quickly, or efficiently. In order to develop forest assets, it would be necessary to improve upon the contrived methods of the day: floating logs down river, or the use of steam tractors, and even horse teams. Peterman knew that if he could develop the then nascent automobile technology and build trucks, he could go a long way towards solving his problem.
To this end, he was rebuilding surplus army trucks, (back in the 50's) improving the technology with each successive vehicle. Then he decided to try to put a battery on the starter (instead of the crank) and shortly thereafter, he purchased the assets of Fageol Motors of Oakland, California in 1938 in order to supplement his need for a custom built logging truck chassis.
Fageol had gone into receivership in 1932. By 1938, the Great Depression had driven the value of the assets to nearly zero. Peterman acquired the defunct truck manufacturer and began to produce customized chain-drive trucks for exclusive use by his timber concern. In 1939, he began to sell his remarkable trucks to the public. .