Off topic Vender Milano

I spotted an ad online for a Vender Milano bulldozer. I see some design similarities with a Caterpillar D7, were they some kind of European copy?

Hi, D8Dude.

Vender was an Italian manufacturer which was swallowed up by Allis Chalmers YEARS before A-C fell foul Fiat. Vender may have been based In Milano, Italy, but I don;t know for sure.

By the scarce reports that I have been able to find, they weren't a bad tractor but parts would be pretty much totally 'roll-yer-own' these days, much like another Italian mob, Ansaldo Fossati.

There are some videos on You Tube of Vender crawlers working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY1Vp2ryePg

And a YouTube search result:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vender+champion+crawler+

Hope this helps.

Just my 0.02.

Thanks for the links Deas. I don't think that I will rush out and buy this one, I was just a little intrigued by the design.

It's funny that you mention Ansaldo. There were a pair of Ansaldo crawlers at a clearing sale I was at not all that long ago, I believe the scrap man was the winning bidder.

Interesting. I am amazed someone has not already collected oddball crawlers, such as the Russian copies of the D7. How many more knock offs are out there? Thanks for sharing. JM

What he said. Anyone have a educated guess as to when the above tractor was built, or at least pre or post WW2?

Since Russia had licensing from Caterpillar in the beginning are the parts interchangeable in the right vintage of machines.

I have read when USA and China resumed doing business after the cold war they had brand new parts for certain Massey Ferguson tractors they were still producing, that where long out of production in the rest of the world.

The Russian licensee was well know as well as Steelweld in Australia during WW2, are there any other cases of Caterpillar officially working with other countries to build Cat equipment?