Four Wheel Drive Auto Co
of Clintonville, Wisconsin, USA
1904 The Four Wheel-Drive Wagon Co was formed in Milwaukee, USA
Presumably later renamed as Four Wheel Drive Auto Co, or F.W.D.
WW1 During the war more than 16,000 F.W.D. lorries were delivered to the Allied Governments. The British Government began purchasing from the American factory in the autumn of 1914, but, owing to interference by German submarine activities, the Ministry of Munitions started to manufacture F.W.D. lorries in this country. These British-built F.W.D. machines, although they were copied from the original design, differed in many ways. Certain parts and materials had to be substituted on account of the difficulty in obtaining correct materials throughout the latter part of the war, and also certain changes which were considered necessary by the American and Canadian plants were not made to the British-made vehicles.[1]
F.W.D. vehicles were used in France by the US Army. The vehicles had a track width of 4ft 8.5 ins so that the wheels could be changed and the vehicle used on the standard gauge railway tracks
1919 Henry Nyberg, vice-president and general manager of the F.W.D. Auto Co., Ltd., of Kitchener, Canada, was requested by the American factory to come over to Europe to see what it would be advisable to do in order to straighten out the F.W.D. business here.
He started to organize a service system in Britain. He had a difficult task to handle, on account of the fact that more than 1,000 F.W.D. machines had been sold from the dumps and put out amongst users without any service information or instructions.
He formed The Four Wheel Drive Lorry Co., Ltd. with works at Slough, Bucks.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Commercial Motor 27 Dec 1921