FWD, 4x4 PIONEER
The first mass-produced four-wheel-drive truck with a payload of more than two tons was built by the eponymous Four Wheel Drive Auto Company (FWD) of Clintonville, Wisconsin, USA.
Brother-in-laws Otto Zachow and William Besserdich – who owned a machine shop business – tested a steam-powered 4x4 chassis in 1908. The effectiveness of the double-Y constant velocity ball-and-socket universal steering/drive system they’d invented was immediately apparent.
A US patent was granted in Zachow’s name the same year. The patent application was handled by their attorney, Walter Olen, who then joined the business, leading FWD successively as general manager, president and chairman until retiring in 1954. At the outset, Zachow and Besserdich assigned the patent rights to the company in exchange for stock.
The FWD name was adopted in 1910. Eight 45hp, four-cylinder gasoline (aka petrol) engined cars were built during the following three years. One was acquired for US Army testing. Another, with a load platform in place of the rear seating, delivered mail for the Clintonville post office (and continued to do so for the next 40 years).
The first truck, the 3-/5-ton rated Model B, was introduced in 1913.
Although tested to the satisfaction of the US Army Quartermaster Corps in a 1,500-mile trial, the first military order was placed not by the US but by the UK Ministry of Munitions in 1915. The first 40 were delivered in six weeks. All told, 2,925 Model Bs served with
