Page 5 - Fall 2019 Travelore

A venerable engine with a
long history is the well-known Caterpillar 3126. It was used extensively
in motorhomes, boats, and other equip- ment throughout it’s history.
The Cummins ISL-class has been popular in motorhomes, especially over the
course of the last ten years. It delivers the performance discerning owners desire.
Diesel Engines, Caterpillar, and Cummins
It is no secret, the Diesel RV Club began life as the Caterpillar RV Engine Owners Club. Caterpillar officially debuted the RV Engine Owners Club at Gaffney, SC on March 12, at Pine Cone Campground. Don Tillman was appointed National Director. The organization quickly grew to 500 members in a short span of time.
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Within three years of that event, the company exited the over-the-road market and in another two years or so, had ceased support of the club. It was at that point that the club name was officially changed to Diesel RV Club and started welcoming owners of other brands. Each member of the club had two thing in common: FMCA membership and the Diesel engine. This is where we pick up the story. To be fair, the story will be told in chronological order.
A Quick History of Cummins
The story of Cummins’ success begins with two men in a small town nearly half way between Indianapolis and Louisville. That town, Columbus, Indiana, has benefitted much by the presence of a company that has never forgotten it’s roots.
Clessie Lyle Cummins was passion- Young Cummins ate about engines. He built his first
was a chauffeur steam engine at the age of eleven. As a young man, he left his family’s farm
in rural Indiana and began working as a chauffeur. This opened an opportunity for him to become a mechanic, which allowed him to feed his fondness of engines.
In 1911, Ray Harroun, a race car driver who learned of Cummins’ reputation, asked him to join his pit crew for a
local auto race. Young Cummins made some suggestions to help improve speed. The car won the first-ever Indianapo- lis 500 and set into motion a chain of events.
In 1919, with backing from banker William G. Irwin, Cummins founded Cummins Engine Co. in Columbus. The two men built a company that was one of the first to take advantage of the ground-breaking technology developed by Rudolf Diesel. Within three years, the company had earned its first profit; in three more, it offered the indus- try’s first 100,000-mile warranty.
In the years that followed, Clessie Cummins’ passion for quality and reliability helped Cummins Engine grow quite rapidly. William Miller’s great nephew became general manager in 1934 and went on to lead the company to international prominence.
Today, Cummins Inc. is a multinational Fortune 500 com- pany with worldwide customers in the areas of engines, power generation, components, and distribution. Cum- mins, always an engine company, has never lost sight of it’s reason for existence and has never strayed from the city in which it was founded.
An Overview of Caterpillar’s Beginnings
While Cummins was always about engines, Caterpillar was
more about tractors and equipment. In 1925, Holt Manu-
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