I've been around equipment people and "bull session" experts all my life and there has a continuing allusion to some connection of Caterpillar to Komatsu in the early days. The premise is that Cat contracted with Komatsu to build something and that lead to Komatsu becoming a big competitor.

Is there any substance in this old story?

Tony Clark
Cat Fifteen PV 197

Tony - No!

definitely NO!

Wouldn't that be sacreligious???

Get a hold of “the Komatsu Story” available over on The Heca site.
They did get a hold of a Cat tractor and more or less copied it. This was in the 30th

Another good read is “Yellow Iron”. It is a History of equipment manufactures.

Michibitchi does do Joint ventures with Cat check out any D3

Here's something I recall from many years ago. I remember seeing either a "Co-Operator" L-W Magazine or a news letter from Columbus Equipment (L-W and Wabco and later Komatsu) dealer in Ohio. Time frame was in the early '60's (like '60 or '61) and the magazine was sent to my Dad. (We used to get these regularly from Marx Tractor (Allis-Chalmers), Ohio Machinery (CAT) and Rish Equipment (I-H).)
In that Co-Operator issue, there was an announcement which I believe was from L-W (or WABCO) that announced the introduction of a Komatsu Bulldozer. Since then, I've always believed there was a relationship between LeTourneau and Komatsu due to the restrictions that were placed on LeTourneau after they merged or sold out to Westinghouse.

I do recall that the machine looked part for part like a D-6 with Hyd. Blade.

Anyone else remember anything about this or maybe someone with an old Co-Operator collection can verify.

Hi, Folks.
If you care to take a wander back through the history of Kummagutsa, you will find that they have been around a LOT longer than just the early 60's. Over on the MMT site, there is a photo of a Kummagutsa dozer from about 1947 and I believe they were making dozers before World War 2.

Yes, the Kummagutsa dozers that we saw in here in DownUnder when they first started arriving here in the early-mid 60's were very much copies of Cats, usually with Cummins donks or eventually Kummagutsa copies of Cummins donks. The early Kummagutsa donks were for all the world copies of Cummins anyway.

If my (aging) memory serves me rightly, the steering clutch and brake adjusting procedure on an early Kummagutsa D80A was almost a clone of the
the Cat D6 8U-9U tractors.

The first Koma's I poked about inside of were small shovels , D50s-12 and D50a blades I think they had a dry back end ?? with the oil back end coming out about the same time as Cat, I also can lay claim to damaging one of the first 155 blades that was on "free demo" from Kamagatsu, while I was push loading some TS14's , I reversed the tractor into a tight corner at high speed (I was flat out and busy it seemed like there was a 100 of these TS14's after me) only to find myself near Knocked out of the cab by a fair sized tree branch, this branch smashed both the rear and front windows also bending the dust-bin size exhaust, I was told by the slasher to "Keep her Rolling", this little slip up had me shaking like the leaves on the poor tree, I was also given a small sales booklet at this time by the rep, inside it said that Kamagatsu built the first Hydraulic Bulldozer ??, I have seen pic's of real old Koma's that are still about in Australia and other parts from WW2 and they do look tough.
tctractors

Hi, AJ.
If Kummagutsa were making their own blades in 1943 (I suspect that it was earlier than that because I seem to remember hearing that the Japanese forces had a lot of Kummagutsa 'dozers during WW2.), they beat Cat to the punch by 4 years. I think you will find that Cat left it that long to begin building their own blades 'cos up till then they had a pretty cosy arrangement with LeTourneau where LeTourneau built attachments for Cat machines (and everybody else's too) and Cat marketed LeTourneau's products through their network.

This all fell in a heap when LeTourneau started building his own scraper prime movers because Cat wouldn't build them for him. Cat didn't like the competition, ended the agreement and started building all their own attachments and scraper prime movers as well.

Re Kummagutsa copying systems, I can still distinctly remember having a a Cat D6B and a Kummagutsa D80A side by side an comparing the steering clutch and brake adjustment systems. Yes, there were differences, a bolt different here, a lock washer there, etc., but there was no mistaking the similarities either. They were about as different as the late 40's-early 50's Chevrolet engines and the late 50's Toyota LandCruiser engines - just enough to avoid patent conflict.

Now as to Kummagutsa being piles of junk, I personally have never said that. (And I'm not saying either that you have said I did say that.) BUT, it is a VERY common observation DownUnder that most Kummagutsa machines last on average only about 2/3 of the hours to first rebuild that Cat machines do.
I work on hire to a LARGE quarrying organisation who have in the past bought a few Kummagutsa 4wd loaders and some dump trucks. They now have an exclusive agreement to purchase all Cat machines simply because of the greater service life and better parts and service availability.

Following are BRIEF specs for Kummagutsa D155AX-6 and somewhat more detailed specs for Cat D8T. The point - for as long as I can remember, Kummagutsa have seemed to have a policy of making their machines just a little heavier and more powerful than their Cat competitors - - maybe to give them that perceived performance edge? However, I'd be VERY surprised if Cat didn't come out on top in terms of work done over say a 10 year period versus operating costs and downtime in the majority of cases. Just my 0.02.
(I have included both U.S. and metric specs for the Cay D8T to give a clearer picture.)

Brief specs of the new D155AX-6 are: Operating weight, 39.5 tonnes, powered by Komatsu SAA6D140E-5 turbocharged after-cooled diesel engine rated at 264 kW; blade capacity, 9.4 cu m; drawbar pull, first gear, 1 km/h, 50,000 kg; transmission, three-speed automatic Torqflow transmission with lock up clutch.


Cat D8T.
Engine Units: US | Metric

Engine Model Cat® C15 ACERT™

Flywheel Power 310 hp

Gross Power 347 hp

Net Power - Caterpillar 310 hp

Net Power - ISO 9249 310 hp

Net Power - SAE J1349 307 hp

Net Power - EU 80/1269 310 hp

Net Power - DIN 70020 322 PS

Bore 5.4 in

Stroke 6.75 in

Displacement 928 in3

Weights

Operating Weight 84850 lb

Shipping Weight 65152 lb

Cat Metric.

Engine Units: US | Metric

Engine Model
Cat® C15 ACERT™

Flywheel Power
231 kW

Gross Power
259 kW

Net Power - Caterpillar
231 kW

Net Power - ISO 9249
231 kW

Net Power - SAE J1349
229 kW

Net Power - EU 80/1269
231 kW

Net Power - DIN 70020
322 PS

Bore
137 mm

Stroke
172 mm

Displacement
15.2 L

Weights

Operating Weight
38488 kg

Shipping Weight
29553 kg

The first real sight of heaps of Koma's , that were fairly rare machine to see in England , was in the yard of S.E. Davis & Son, at the time I was getting the stuffing knocked out of me by a firm that also used a part of this yard at Astwood Bank " T.E.JONES " from Knockin Shrewsbury, later called Greyhound plant I think???, the Koma's seemed to be stored in this yard for quite some time, until Komatsu had there own Depot constructed, I can recall a good team of lads there that would take D60's & D80/85's to demonstrate Crawler Cultivation to the farms, I myself have never thought that there was that much in a Koma that was the copy of a Cat, (the D50s looked like an old 955)I have ripped most Komatsu kit to bits , from the D31 to the 275 tractor also from the pc120 to the pc 600 excavator (and have the pic's) I think they are A1 bits of kit, I have also fitted a Cat CCU to a 155 tractor, and a Komatsu CCU to a D8K, it all helps to keep the family in feed and water.
tctractors