A 1950 CAT D315

Caterpillar was on a roll prior to World War II and rapidly dominating the crawler market. The war speeded that roll up and they were smart and agile enough to take advantage of the momentum in the post-war landscape.

- JIM ALLEN

Cat was a very engine-centric company and manufactured their own powerplants. When it came time to upgrade their engine lines, they went after it with a lot of energy. They must have spent some portion of the war developing new engine designs because in 1947, they debuted several new engines, the D311, D315, D318, to name just three, replacing the D3400, D4400 and D4600 engines.

One feature the new engines shared were cross-flow heads that allowed better breathing and they all were considerably more powerful than the engines they replaced.