Marmon-Herrington

[1] Earlier, the company built military vehicles and some tanks during World War II, and until the late 1950s or early 1960s was a manufacturer of trucks and trolley buses.

[3] By the early 1930s, the U.S. economy had taken a severe downturn, and with the onset of the Great Depression, the market for prestigious luxury cars mostly collapsed.

To keep his business going, Marmon joined forces with an ex-military engineer in the person of Arthur Herrington in 1931, with a new idea to focus on building all-wheel-drive trucks.

Marmon-Herrington got off to a successful start in March 1931, when the company procured contracts for 33 T-1 4x4 aircraft refueling trucks, powered by 6-cylinder Hercules engines, followed by a variety of 4x4 and 6x6 vehicles for the U.S. and Persian armies, for use as general load carriers, towing light weaponry, mobile machine shops, and wreckers.

[1][7] Marmon-Herrington's all-wheel-drive conversions of Ford light trucks were successfully sold to the military of both the U.S. and several foreign governments.

The United States Ordnance Department was given the task of developing the proposed tank, and in turn, requested designs from three American companies: General Motors, J. Walter Christie and Marmon-Herrington.

Some Marmon-Herrington trolley buses withdrawn from service in the United States were sold secondhand to Mexico City's Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos (STE) between the late 1960s and late 1970s and continued in service for many more years on that city's trolley bus network.

[20] The Illinois Railway Museum has preserved two ex-Chicago Transit Authority Marmon-Herrington trolley coaches and one ex-Milwaukee unit.

[3] During the Cold war era, Marmon diversified its production line by adding aircraft, missiles and rockets ground support equipment, manufactured by its subsidiary, Cardair, based in Chicago, Illinois.

In addition to building installation kits for all-wheel-drive, the company has also become a front-drive-axle and transfer case manufacturer to the medium- and heavy-duty truck market.