[AT] Michelin

[Jack]

Norris did have some White trucks then. They were still in production.

https://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2002/12/16/daily25.html

[ Jack] might have been an OC3. It said Cletrac and not Oliver.
http://www.cletrac.org/forum2010/index.php?topic=3149.0

[Jack] In the late seventies, Norris Brothers, a Cleveland rigging contractor, had a gasoline powered Cletrac with rubber pads they used for moving machinery that was on rollers. I can't tell you the model. It was painted red. 

]Jack] Pre Oliver rubber tracks? Maybe it was the Oliver ownership of Cletrac that had a not invented here attitude about rubber tracks.

https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/ageless-iron/cletracs-vaunted-crawler-line_565-sl42373

[ Jack]  1945 rubber tracked Cletrac? I bet the halftrack tracks would not handle skid steering.

https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/ageless-iron/cletracs-vaunted-crawler-line_565-sl42373

]Jack] Any idea where the rubber tracks were made? The Cleveland White location was only about 40 miles from the rubber capital of the world (Akron) in WW2. 

>From Wikipedia: "The track was a endless rubber-band track which was made of molded rubber over steel cabling with metal track guides"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3_Half-track#cite_note-5

In the middle 70s, the then active Warner and Swasey Cleveland E55th plant still had WW2 gun towers up.

[STEVE ALLEN] Actually, they did not pioneer that technology.  White and Autocar used it during WWII for the track of US Halftracks, the M2/M3 series and derivatives.

When we gave the Israelis a boatload of the halftracks, they actually started up a new production line for those tracks because the original supplies had been exhausted.  Some new ones of Israeli vintage are still hanging around.  Last time, I looked a set was going for $6000+, but that was years ago.  MilVeh collectors and WWII reenactors covet them.  I don't know that anyone else has reproduced them since.

ATIS reference:  a number of surplus halftracks ended up doing Ag and forestry chores right after the war, most stripped of their armor, alas.

The "original" Steve Allen

[ Jack] I saw my first rubber tracked (then Caterpillar) Challenger plowing I believe in 1986. Caterpillar had developed the rubber tread technology using embedded steel wires like in high pressure hydraulic hose. 32 years, is that antique?

When the Challenger line transitioned to Agco, the rubber tread did not go with it. Now the rubber tread manufacturing technology is going to a tire company, Michelin.