Tiny Beetle Bulldozer in Fairbanks Golden Days Parade
The smallest bulldozer I have ever seen was in the Golden Days Parade on Saturday. It is a Beetle, built by Western Gear Works of Seattle in the late 1940s. The Beetle was developed by the U.S. Forest Service Equipment Development Lab in Portland, Oregon in 1945. The USFS gave the designs to Western Gear for production. The Beetle was produced in a narrow-gauge version for building trails and fire breaks for the Forest Service, and a wide-gauge version for general use. It was produced until 1948.
From the front of the dozer blade to the back of the seat the Beetle is 105 5/8” long. The seat is 30 1/2” off the ground, and the tops of the control levers are 40 1/2” off the ground. The blade is 18” high and 51” wide. It runs on a 4-cyclinder gasoline engine, develops 15 HP, has a top speed (in reverse) of 5.14 MPH, a turning radius of 55”, weighs a little less than 1 ton and can fit in the bed of a pickup.
(The specifications listed above are from an original sales brochure found on the Rokon World website
http://www.rokonworld.com/trailbeetle/beetle.html
Other information on the Beetle is from the Rokon World site as well.)
