Stories about vintage construction equipment and their collectors continued to be popular in 2024 for Equipment World audiences.
Among the stories was a 1962 “Sugar Baby,” a Cat D6 converted from tracks to wheels for hauling sugar cane in Florida.
A collector helped track down and acquire a 1954 Allis-Chalmers HD-15 dozer that his grandfather used to start an excavation business in 1960 and hadn’t seen in over 50 years. We also found a man who has the largest collection of Struck mini dozers.
We’re glad to see readers enjoy these stories as much as we do in telling them. Many of the stories have companion videos showing the machines in action.
We’ve listed the top five vintage-equipment stories of 2024 below, along with links on how you can access them if you want to read – and watch – more. You can also check out our Vintage Equipment section on equipmentworld.com to see our full collection.
On the left, a rare 1930s prototype of the Trackson Traxcavator on an International I-30 tractor, called the TracTracTor. On the right, a late-1940s T4 Traxcavator on a Cat D4.Bill Deutsch
Bill Deutsch has a rare collection of crawler tractors equipped with the Trackson Traxcavator, an invention that led to Caterpillar developing the modern-day track loader.
He even has what could be the only one of its kind left, a 1930s prototype of the Trackson Traxcavator attachment on an International I-30 tractor, called the International TracTracTor.
Another unusual aspect to Deutsch’s vintage-equipment collection is that he uses a lot of the machines in his operations as the owner of Deutsch Excavating in Northfield, Minnesota. That includes 1950s-era Cat cable dozers, scrapers and motor grader.
“We had always talked about it, and he had an old picture of it,” Jeff Engstrom says of his grandpa's 1954 Allis-Chalmers HD-15, as seen above in 1963.Jeff Engstrom
John Engstrom bought a 1954 Allis-Chalmers HD-15 dozer in 1960 to start an excavation business. He ran the HD-15 for five years and sold it, but he often thought about the old dozer that helped him launch a successful company and become an important fixture in Hastings, Minnesota.
Fast forward to 2019 when his grandson Jeff Engstrom was at an antique tractor show. A man approached saying he knew the whereabouts of an old Allis-Chalmers dozer with his grandfather’s company name on it.
The old, rusted dozer left to die in the woods turned out to be John Engstrom’s long-lost HD-15.
Jeff Malmberg has the largest pre-1990s collection of Struck mini dozers and equipment.Jeff Malmberg
3. Stuck on Struck Mini Dozers – Big Collection Focuses on Small Machines
Since 1967, readers of Popular Mechanics magazine have been intrigued by one of its regular back-pages ads.
It promises the backyard do-it-yourselfers they can do the work of a contractor at a fraction of the cost with the Struck Mini Dozer. The DIY theme extends even further as the dozers come by mail-order kit that customers assemble.
Jeff Malmberg of Grand Rapids, Michigan, first saw the ads about 30 years ago and eventually found himself becoming the largest collector of pre-1990s Struck machines. Not only has the small company based in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, produced mini dozers, but all kinds of mini Jeeps, including amphibious and articulated models, tractors and even snowmobiles.
Malmberg has most all of them – as well as many that never went into production.
Sam Descutner's 1950 Lorain 820 shovel loading a Euclid S-7 truck at the National Pike Steam, Gas and Horse Association show in 2022.Sam Descutner
Sam Descutner has been operating vintage cable shovels since he was 8 years old.
In eighth grade, he began his first restoration project, a 1960 Bucyrus Erie 22-B, which he finished at age 15.
Now at 31, the mechanical engineer in McDonald, Pennsylvania, still maintains his love of vintage construction equipment as a hobby. He especially likes the friction cable cranes, the predecessors to the hydraulic excavator.
As he goes in search of rundown machinery to rescue, he videos his travels and restoration projects. His YouTube channel “Scrappy Industries” has more than 60,000 followers. Some of his videos have over 500,000 views.
His followers also help him on his searches.
Erik Christenbury of North Carolina found and restored this 1962 D6 B that was converted from tracks to wheels for U.S. Sugar.Erik Christenbury
5. What’s a “Sugar Baby” Cat? – Collector Reveals 1962 Wheeled D6 (Video)
As an avid Caterpillar collector, Erik Christenbury had the “Sugar Baby” Cat on his wish list.
He had heard about the D6s that got their nickname after U.S. Sugar had converted them from tracks to rubber tires in the 1950s and 1960s. The company used those “DW6s” for hauling wagons filled with 30 tons of sugar cane from the fields to the company’s sugar mills.
When one of the converted D6s popped up on eBay, Christenbury thought he’d finally scored. Another bidder, however, captured the prize.
In 2011, he got a second chance.
A friend who owns a scrapyard in southwest Virginia called to say one just showed up and asked if he were interested. He drove from his home in Liberty, North Carolina, to have a look.
“I didn't realize he had two of them,” Christenbury recalls. “And before our conversation ended, I bought both of them.”
