History of Champion Motor Graders

[Motor Grader]

Hey guys, I have been given some priceless pictures and brochures of the early years at Champion Road Machinery....actually it would have been DRMCO...Dominion Road Machinery. Some things have dates and some dont but regardless, you grader lovers will enjoy looking at some of this. I hope you enjoy and it creates lots of discussion. Its a lot of stuff so I'm going to try and put something new on here every week till I get it all.

These pics are around the 1950's and 60's and are at the factory in Goderich, Ontario.

 

[Motor Grader]

More.

 

[Randy Krieg]

Bryan
I remember seeing a picture very similar to that first airial view in one of the Alaska DOT Maintenance supervisor's office back in the 80s. Champion had just won another contact with the Alaska DOT for like 60 new graders. The pictured showed all the new machines lined up around the building getting ready to ship out, it was pretty impressive.

Great pictures, very interesting!

Regards, Randy

 

[ovrszd]

pics

Great pictures!!!

In the first photo the graders haven't been badged yet. I would have thought back then it would have been painted on rather than a vinyl sticker like today.

I like to look in the background, especially the pictures where workers are shown, OSHA would have a fit today!!! See all the safety hazards laying around on the floor!!!

Off subject a little but the parking lot photo of the cars is very interesting!!!! One poor guy is driving a pretty old, pre-WWII car, I'm betting he's feeding a houseful of kids!!! Another guy is driving a VW Beetle, what a variety that is!!!

 

[tripper_174]

I was thinking about how great those old pictures were when it dawned on me that I ran one of those D models when it wasn't very old. Lord how the years go by! Thanks for posting them, they bring back some pretty good memories.

 

[schuiver]

Nice picturs, 16 years ago I was visiting the factory and it was very intresting, especially to see how the graders wer made.

 

[Motor Grader]

The parking lot pic was just too cool having the cars of that time in it. Plus the rail cars were all loaded with graders. The fenced part is now all building. Funny thing is that the parking in front of the building never improved too much up to the day they closed the doors there.

 

[Motor Grader]

Maybe I should have posted this one first. Champion's roots go back to the late 1800's.

 

[Motor Grader]

This one was 1928 and was the first fully Hydraulically Controlled grader.

 

[plowking740]

very nice pictures, look forward to see more.
but i have a question for you,
i found a grader for sale on Machery trader that is a "cleveland D562" it looks like an older Champion. whats the deal with that?

 

[Grader4me]

Very interesting pictures. Thanks for taking the time to share them.

 

[Greg]

Really neat to see things like this.

The parking lot photo above has to be in the 1960's. There is a 1960 Ford there, looks like a mid 1960 Olds too. VW Beetle there too from 50's or 60's.

 

[smoothoperator]

To plowking740-

It was way before my time as an operator, but if I remember correctly from my pile of old literature, once upon a time Champion graders were labeled Cleveland, or Cleveland- DRMCO. I think the DRMCO was short for Dominion Road Machinery. Could be wrong. Austin-Western from the same era was marketed as BLH Austin-Western. BLH for Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton. I think there was a lot of this going on in the 1960's

smoothoperator...family owned since 1959

 

[ovrszd]

This one was 1928 and was the first fully Hydraulically Controlled grader.

Look at the length of the moldboard on this old kid!!!!! Wow!!!!

 

[Super Roel]

History of Champion Motorgraders

This one was 1928 and was the first fully Hydraulically Controlled grader.

Thanks for the pictures and the time to shared it with us .

 

[Diagonal Brace]

In the 2nd set of photos in the 2nd picture what are all of those things? i cannot make them out.

 

[Iron Man]

Bet one's seen it's share of snow since it was born in 1973:

 

[smoothoperator]

D'oh!
Upon closer inspection of the edge of the top photo in post #2, I see the words "Dominion Road Machinery Co. Limited". Photo may have been used during a period of transition.

The photo below it might be snow wings/posts, it's hard to tell for sure.
Back in the early '80's, I sent away for some Champion literature, and received some very nice 5x7 or 8x10 pictures of an all wheel drive 720 or 740A machine. Looked wicked with it's big dark one piece door glass. The kind of pictures that would make a 440 Wabco operator start to drool.

 

[Motor Grader]

More old Champion Grader pics

 

[Dominion 410]

Champion

Great pictures,thanks for sharing.Years back the Department of Highways here used graders for plowing the local highway by-pass,as well as plow trucks.One of the grader operators was a real cowboy,and he would really get rolling along with a 4-71Detroit powered D-562.He would stop at the lights and have the hand throttle wide open and just leave it like that.That old 4-71 would just about stall out when he'd let the clutch out,but did it sound good.Remember waking up for school in the morning and would hear that thing just howling down the road.Excellent:drinkup

Dominion