Caterpillar Celebrates 50 years of Demonstration & Learning Centres

Incredibly Caterpillar’s world-famous Demonstration & Learning Centres are celebrating the big 50 years since being established, a legacy that even dates right back to 1925, when machines were first demonstrated to customers at the original site in East Peoria.

According to Caterpillar’s historical archives, the next demonstration site to be developed was the Edwards, Illinois DLC facility, which officially opened its doors in 1971.

This meant they had the North American market covered, but they needed to open a facility to serve the rapidly expanding European market, and what better place to locate it than Malaga in Spain which was also opened later that same year.

In 1990 DLC coverage expanded once more with the establishment of the Tinaja Hills facility in Arizona. The idea behind this centre, was that it would be closer to Caterpillar’s large mining customers, and so naturally this centre focuses on the large mining equipment range in the product portfolio. In addition, its location in the much sunnier southwest area, was more friendly for visitors all year round as opposed to the often-harsh winters in the Midwest.

I have never been lucky enough to visit any of the American facilities, but I have visited the one in Malaga on numerous occasions in the past, my first time being in 2011, for the launch of the E-Series excavators and other products such as the D8T track type tractor.

I was also blessed to fulfil a lifetime dream of driving a 627G motor scraper on that occasion too.

Since then, I have been involved in a number of exclusive First Drive opportunities for Earthmovers Magazine, with my last assignment being in 2019 with the launch of the Next Generation mini and heavy range excavators.

These facilities are top class in every aspect, and offer so much more than just machine demonstrations, including operator training, with instructors who all have at least 10 years of operating experience, technology and maintenance training.

Let’s take a look at this brief video from Caterpillar featuring these famous facilities.