The theme tune for thousands of muckshifters!

by Nick Drew | Thu 14 Jul 2016

The theme tune for thousands of muckshifters!

I came across this video the other day on You Tube and figured we could all do with some black smoke and the sound of raw power which is offered to us by this classic Cat D8.

So many of us don’t know we are born today, we climb into an air-conditioned cab, turn the key, crank up the radio and off we go. But for fellas who used to operate the old machines like the D8H things were rather different. For starters (forgive the pun) you had to fire up the donkey motor, which in turn would fire up the main engine, then on firing up a massive plume of black smoke would belch out of the exhaust and if the wind was in the wrong direction you could get a “sooty” face, especially if you were sat on a non-cabbed version of the iconic dozer. sheds%20052%20web

Photo: Courtesty of Nick Lamb. The D8 tractor in its various guises has been in Caterpillars product line since the mid 1930's and has been one of the most famous number designations and successful dozers in the companies product line, only maybe eclipsed by the mighty D9G in the iconic stakes. The machine is still in the product line today as the D8T model which I was lucky enough to have a play on in Malaga incredibly over 5 years ago now.

Photo taken by Graham Black. So check out the video footage of this vintage dozer at a working event in the Netherlands and enjoy the soundtrack to your muckshifting youth! [youtube width="725" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf6NdD8ZL4g[/youtube]

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