Marmon-Herrington
Company type | Parent Berkshire Hathaway | |
---|---|---|
Website | marmon-herrington |
The Marmon-Herrington Company, Inc. is an American manufacturer of
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Marmon-harrington-ford-4wd.jpg/220px-Marmon-harrington-ford-4wd.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Marmon_Herrington_Tanks_LOC_fsa_8e09169u.jpg/220px-Marmon_Herrington_Tanks_LOC_fsa_8e09169u.jpg)
Founded in 1931 by Walter C. Marmon and Arthur W. Herrington, the company was the successor to the Marmon Motor Car Company, a maker of high quality, costly automobiles from 1902 to 1933.[3] By the early 1930s, the U.S. economy had taken a severe downturn, and with the onset of the Great Depression, the market for prestigious luxury cars mostly collapsed. To keep his business going, Marmon joined forces with an ex-military engineer in the person of Arthur Herrington in 1931, with a new idea to focus on building all-wheel-drive trucks.[4] And so the company became Marmon-Herrington,[5] initially as the truck production division of the Marmon Motor Car Company, developing military trucks.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Ford_F6_Marmon-Herrington_Gunfire_Museum_Brasschaat_13-03-2021.jpg/220px-Ford_F6_Marmon-Herrington_Gunfire_Museum_Brasschaat_13-03-2021.jpg)
Marmon-Herrington (MH) got off to a successful start in March 1931, when the company procured contracts for 33 T-1 4x4 aircraft refueling trucks, powered by 6-cylinder Hercules engines, followed by a variety of 4x4 and 6x6 vehicles for the U.S. and Persian armies, for use as general load carriers, towing light weaponry, mobile machine shops, and wreckers.
In 1936, the T9 Ford-Marmon-Herrington unarmored half-track was produced for the U.S. Army and featured the tracks, the powered front axle and a front ditch roller that would be used on the armored half-tracks of WWII.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/M2_truck_halftrack.jpg/220px-M2_truck_halftrack.jpg)
Marmon-Herrington also made multi-stop delivery vans and passenger vehicles. The company designed a military armoured vehicle which could be constructed on a commercial truck chassis. The design was taken up by South Africa in 1938, the result of which became known as the
During
The company also manufactured airport fire trucks, like the Marmon Herrington MB-1 and Marmon Herrington MB-5. They were mainly used by the military, like the
Trolley buses
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Dayton_Marmon-Herrington_trolleybus_515.jpg/220px-Dayton_Marmon-Herrington_trolleybus_515.jpg)
The company's foray into transit buses began in 1946, when it produced its first electric trolley bus. The end of World War II had brought a steep drop in the need for military vehicles, so Marmon-Herrington looked for another area of vehicle manufacturing in which it might find new business.[13] Its first "trolley coaches", the more common term for trolley buses at that time, introduced innovative features such as lightweight monocoque bodies and strong, double-girder sidewalls, which made the Marmon-Herrington trolley coach the best-selling trolley coach of the postwar era.[13] Its trolley buses were successful in the fleets of many North American cities, most notably Chicago and San Francisco, which purchased large numbers; Chicago bought 349 in a single order (delivered in 1951–52), a record for the MH company.[13] Marmon-Herrington supplied trolley buses to 16 different cities in the United States, among the buyers being the Cincinnati Street Railway Company, which purchased 214, and the Cleveland Railway, with 125;[14] vehicles were also sold to two cities in Brazil. The principal models were the TC44, TC48, and TC49, with the number denoting the number of seats. A single order of the 40-seat TC40 model was produced for San Francisco, and likewise, the TC46 was produced for only one customer, Philadelphia, before MH replaced it with the TC48 model.[13]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Dayton_Marmon_515_front.jpg/220px-Dayton_Marmon_515_front.jpg)
Trolley bus production lasted from 1946 until 1959; in total, 1,624 vehicles were produced,[15] all at the company's Indianapolis factory.[13] The last of San Francisco's 260 MH trolley buses[16] were retired in 1976 and Philadelphia's last units in 1981. Some MH trolley buses withdrawn from service in the United States were sold secondhand to Mexico City's Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos (STE) between the late 1960s and late 1970s and continued in service for many more years on that city's trolley bus network.[17][18] Although the last Marmon-Herrington trolley buses in original form were retired by STE in 1988, many underwent a rebuilding of their bodies in the 1980s by the Mexican company Moyada and continued working; the last five of these Moyada-remodeled Marmon-Herrington trolley buses of STE survived in service until 2002.[19] By the late 1950s, the market for new trolley buses in North America had dried up, as some trolley bus systems were being abandoned while others had re-equipped with new MH vehicles. The company's last orders for transit vehicles were also its only export orders for trolley buses, to Recife and Belo Horizonte in Brazil, comprising 65 and 50 TC49s, respectively, delivered in 1958–59.[13][14] Recife overhauled some of its TC49s in the 1980s, and several remained in service until 2001.[20]
The Illinois Railway Museum has preserved two ex-Chicago Transit Authority Marmon-Herrington trolley coaches and one ex-Milwaukee unit.
1960s to present
In the early 1960s, the
The MH company continues today as a converter of commercial trucks to
Marmon-Herrington axles can still be found on even the newest military vehicles and commercial trucks. In addition to building installation kits for all-wheel-drive, the company has also become a front-drive-axle and transfer case manufacturer to the medium- and heavy-duty truck market.In 2008, the holding company Berkshire Hathaway purchased a majority stake in Marmon Holdings, which includes the Marmon Group and Marmon-Herrington.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "History of Innovation". Marmon-Herrington. 2009. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
- ^ a b Spoelstra, Hanno. "Trucks converted with Marmon-Herrington All-Wheel Drive Conversion Kits". Marmon-Herrington Military Vehicles.
- ^ a b "The Marmon Group – Then". The Marmon Group. Archived from the original on 2008-12-23. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
- ^ Borth, Christy. Masters of Mass Production, pp. 215-6, 225, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1945.
- ^ Fisher, Lindsey (2014-08-11). "Vintage Monday_ Marmon-Herrington Trucks; The Jeep's Grandfather – Off Road Xtreme". Offroadxtreme.com. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ a b "Marmon-Herrington Ford – AWD Truck Manufacturers, history (archived)". Archived from the original on 2017-10-24. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ ""Cross Country Vehicle Has All Four Wheel Drive", March 1934, Popular Mechanics". Hearst Magazines. March 1934. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "South Africa's Marmon-Herrington Armored Cars - World War II Vehicles, Tanks, and Airplanes". Archived from the original on 2011-11-24. Retrieved 2011-04-27.
- ^ Flint, p. 23.
- ^ a b Flint, page 24.
- ^ Zaloga, M551 Sheridan, p. 5.
- ^ "Cape Cod Brush Breakers 3". Capecodfd.com. 2007-11-25. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ a b c d e f Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1973). Transit's Stepchild: The Trolley Coach. Los Angeles: Interurbans. LCCN 73-84356.
- ^ a b Porter, Harry; and Worris, Stanley F.X. (1979). Trolleybus Bulletin No. 109: Databook II. North American Trackless Trolley Association (defunct).
- ISBN 0-904235-18-1.
- ISBN 978-0-916374-49-5.
- ^ Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1974). The Trolley Coach in North America, pages 347–355. Los Angeles: Interurbans. LCCN 74-20367.
- ^ Morgan, Steve (1990). "Mexico Review: Part 2", Trolleybus Magazine Number 174 (November–December 1990), pages 128–137. ISSN 0266-7452.
- ^ Trolleybus Magazine Number 246 (November–December 2002), page 138. ISSN 0266-7452.
- ^ Morgan, Steve (2001). "Recife in Transition", Trolleybus Magazine Number 240 (November–December 2001), pages 129–135.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ Compression to 12,000 psi. // Aviation Week & Space Technology, Mid-December, 1960, volume 73, number 27, page 292.
- ^ Marmon-Herrington – OEM Products
External links
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