The Birth of Four Wheel Drives

The birth of four wheel drives….

  Hey guys its Mason and Steve here from Australian UteCanopies. Steve and myself much like the rest of you out there who are right into our four wheel drives love nothing more than getting out and about and having a great time with friends and family in our 4wd’s and just recently Steve and I were having a bit of a chat about all of the amazing new technologies coming out these days in these beautiful new release vehicles and having a laugh about how what we have today is a complete luxury compared to the earlier models we used to run around in and it occurred to us that it’s almost as if our brains think of 4wd’s beginning with the old school ToyotaHilux as if that’s where life began for us in our minds in relation to this technology. I asked Steve if he knew where the first idea of this technology come from and he was not 110% sure but thought it may have military origins and I honestly didn’t have enough of an education to even place a bet and this got me absolutely and utterly intrigued and I can’t stand not knowing something so I put on my research hat and picked up my shovel and starting digging around looking for the answers to this question and decided to put what I discovered out there for all of our friends out there so we can all be just that little bit the wiser on the subject.

  Alrighty then…..  Bramah Joseph Diplock is a pretty big deal in the world of four wheel drives guys, in 1893 in Britain this bloke patented the world’s first 4 wheel drive system, it was 4 wheel steering and had a series of 3 differentials and steam powered so this old girl pretty much kick started the entire evolution of what we know of 4wds today. This Diplock lad come up with the wildest bit of gear as far as getting the power down to the ground, check out this photo I found below of the Pedrail wheel.

   Now this Pedrail wheel was originally intended to give better traction in adverse ground conditions like out in the paddocks and was originally designed with agricultural purposes in mind, that and intended to reduce damage to the early road ways which I’m sure would have been pretty how you goin to start off with, what a lad. Bramah then took his crazy looking wheels, 4wd system and differentials and wacked them together to make his pride and joy the Pedrail Locomotive which was pretty kick ass back in the day, wonder if he ever took his locomotive down a few bush tracks to the beach for a spot of fishing on the weekends? Have a look at this old girl below.

  Agriculture was the original intention of this technology but on the 16^th of February in 1915 they put together a little demo for Mr Winston Churchill and showed him how this little invention could be put to work with military potential, this was the birth then of what we know as the modern armoured tank of today, except we know them with “caterpillar tracks” which first come about from another clever bugger by the name of Richard Lovell Edgeworth also of England who in the 1770’s after a good 40 years of mucking around with this idea placed the first patent on the very first continuous track system.

  So there you go guys, this is the factual birth of 4 wheel drives that we all know and love today. Who would have thought ey?  I can’t believe I am going to say this but a big thanks to the poms for getting the ball rolling on my weekend adventures I enjoy so much today. 

  Well I hope you have all learned a little something and I hope I haven't bored you too much in the process, I found this fascinating and wanted to share with you all what I discovered. If you made it all the way down here to the bottom of this page then thanks heaps for reading and look forward to seeing you down at Australian Ute Canopies.

Mason