Classic American Heavy Equipment Collector Adds to his Fleet

We featured Garret Wilson, who has a passion for classic equipment, in a couple of blog post’s earlier this year here on the Digger Man Blog and I’m delighted to report that he’s been back in touch to tell us about his latest acquisition.

Garret has purchased a 1971 Drott Cruz-air 40YR wheeled excavator which is fitted with a Detroit Diesel 4-53 two stroke diesel engine and features a 4-speed transmission.

American company Drott, more well known for the legendary 4-in-1 bucket, first entered the hydraulic excavator market as far back as 1962 when they purchased the manufacturing rights from French company Yumbo.

In 1965 Drott produced their own in-house designed wheeled excavator with a front mounted engine on the chassis, the 40ER Cruz-air. Some of the later models were capable of achieving speeds of up to 50kph, around 30mph.

Like many companies historically Drott was acquired by a larger business, in this instance Tenneco who took over in 1968, in turn it became a division of J.I. Case, this saw the machines become named as Case Drott in the early 1970’s before the Drott name was eventually phased out completely.

Garret had long had an ambition to purchase and restore one of the original models and when he came across this example, he knew he just had to have it to add to his ever-expanding collection of classic American machines.

Photo: Garret and son checking out the new addition the Drott 40YR.

I for one am looking forward to seeing how this restoration goes, but in the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Garret for sharing his photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.