BOBCAT

The story began in the 1950s with brothers Louis and Cyril Keller, who ran a welding and repair shop near Rothsay, Minnesota. A local turkey farmer, Eddie Velo, described the need for a machine small enough to work inside a pole barn, and the brothers built a small three-wheeled loader with a belt-driven transmission, delivered on 4 February 1957. In 1958 they patented a sturdier clutch-based transmission, which became the basis of the Melroe M60 loader.

Melroe Manufacturing Company of Gwinner, North Dakota, took the machine to market, launched the four-wheeled M400 skid-steer loader in 1960 and began using the name Bobcat in 1962 on the 440 model. Clark Equipment bought Melroe in 1969, Ingersoll-Rand bought Clark in 1995, and in 2007 Doosan of South Korea took over for US$4.9 billion. The company now sells skid-steer loaders, compact excavators, side-by-sides, compact tractors and mowers.