Euclid Trucks

The Euclid Trucks was a manufacturer which specialized in heavy equipment for earthmoving, particularly dump trucks, loaders and wheel tractor-scrapers. Known for its distinctive bright green paint scheme, it operated in the United States from the 1920s to the 1950s, when it was purchased by General Motors. The firm was later bought by Hitachi Construction Machinery.

The Euclid Company of Euclid, Ohio, made specifically designed off-road heavy haulers, compared with other companies that modified on-road trucks for off-road earth-hauling.

The Euclid Crane and Hoist Co., formed in 1909 and owned by George A. Armington and his five sons, had become a large, respected and profitable operation by the early 1920s. It introduced the Euclid Automatic Rotary Scraper in 1924, soon followed by the Euclid Wheeler (wheeled) scraper. Those earthmoving products were conceived by George's eldest son, Arthur, who steered the company into the earthmoving field. The two models of scrapers were well received, and a third model, the Euclid Contractors Special, designed to cope with hard ground, was even more successful. In 1926, the Armingtons formed Euclid Inc., the Road Machinery Division of Euclid Crane and Hoist, to cater especially to the off-road hauler market.

Arthur and his father, George, had built a successful prototype crawler, and tested it on the family farm, but the crawler design was dropped, for reasons unknown. Large public works construction programs in 1927 and 1928 required large excavations, thus enhancing the success of the Euclid Road Machinery division.

Euclid produced crawler wagons on tracks (similar to Athey Wagons) known as Euclid Tu-Way haulers. The crawler track speed restriction was a problem, and the next version used steel wheels for improved speed. George Armington Jr was a keen hydraulics designer, and produced the first hydraulic Euclid dumpers circa 1930.

The Great Depression did not affect Euclid greatly, and the expansion of the earthmoving portion of the Euclid business led to the incorporation of the Euclid Road Machinery Co., on July 11, 1931. That company remained a subsidiary of Euclid Armington Corp, until January 1, 1933, when the companies were separated. Euclid Road Machinery became a producer of fast, off-road earthmoving haulers.

Euclid produced its first specially designed, 7-yard (6.4 m)-long, off-road dump truck, the Model 1Z, in January 1934. It was powered by a 100 horsepower (75 kW) Waukesha gasoline engine, and used an extremely heavy-duty, Euclid rear axle, fitted with a new 17.5 x 24 tire, which had just been released by the tire industry. Mack had produced a 14-yard (13 m)-long, heavy duty off-road hauler in 1931, specifically for the Boulder Dam project (the Model AP Super-Duty), but it was basically a beefed-up, road-going, chain-drive AC Bulldog Mack.

The next Euclid design was an articulated, tractor/trailer, in the style of the Caterpillar DW10 bottom dumper. It was known as the Model Z or ZW.