Hey guys, I have been given some priceless pictures and brochures of the early years at Champion Road Machinery....actually it would have been DRMCO...Dominion Road Machinery. Some things have dates and some dont but regardless, you grader lovers will enjoy looking at some of this. I hope you enjoy and it creates lots of discussion. Its a lot of stuff so I'm going to try and put something new on here every week till I get it all. These pics are around the 1950's and 60's and are at the factory in Goderich, Ontario.
More.
Bryan I remember seeing a picture very similar to that first airial view in one of the Alaska DOT Maintenance supervisor's office back in the 80s. Champion had just won another contact with the Alaska DOT for like 60 new graders. The pictured showed all the new machines lined up around the building getting ready to ship out, it was pretty impressive. Great pictures, very interesting! Regards, Randy
pics Great pictures!!! In the first photo the graders haven't been badged yet. I would have thought back then it would have been painted on rather than a vinyl sticker like today. I like to look in the background, especially the pictures where workers are shown, OSHA would have a fit today!!! See all the safety hazards laying around on the floor!!! Off subject a little but the parking lot photo of the cars is very interesting!!!! One poor guy is driving a pretty old, pre-WWII car, I'm betting he's feeding a houseful of kids!!! Another guy is driving a VW Beetle, what a variety that is!!!
I was thinking about how great those old pictures were when it dawned on me that I ran one of those D models when it wasn't very old. Lord how the years go by! Thanks for posting them, they bring back some pretty good memories.
Nice picturs, 16 years ago I was visiting the factory and it was very intresting, especially to see how the graders wer made.
The parking lot pic was just too cool having the cars of that time in it. Plus the rail cars were all loaded with graders. The fenced part is now all building. Funny thing is that the parking in front of the building never improved too much up to the day they closed the doors there.
Maybe I should have posted this one first. Champion's roots go back to the late 1800's.
This one was 1928 and was the first fully Hydraulically Controlled grader.
very nice pictures, look forward to see more. but i have a question for you, i found a grader for sale on Machery trader that is a "cleveland D562" it looks like an older Champion. whats the deal with that?
Very interesting pictures. Thanks for taking the time to share them.
Really neat to see things like this. The parking lot photo above has to be in the 1960's. There is a 1960 Ford there, looks like a mid 1960 Olds too. VW Beetle there too from 50's or 60's.
To plowking740- It was way before my time as an operator, but if I remember correctly from my pile of old literature, once upon a time Champion graders were labeled Cleveland, or Cleveland- DRMCO. I think the DRMCO was short for Dominion Road Machinery. Could be wrong. Austin-Western from the same era was marketed as BLH Austin-Western. BLH for Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton. I think there was a lot of this going on in the 1960's smoothoperator...family owned since 1959
Look at the length of the moldboard on this old kid!!!!! Wow!!!!
History of Champion Motorgraders Thanks for the pictures and the time to shared it with us .
In the 2nd set of photos in the 2nd picture what are all of those things? i cannot make them out.
Bet one's seen it's share of snow since it was born in 1973:
D'oh! Upon closer inspection of the edge of the top photo in post #2, I see the words "Dominion Road Machinery Co. Limited". Photo may have been used during a period of transition. The photo below it might be snow wings/posts, it's hard to tell for sure. Back in the early '80's, I sent away for some Champion literature, and received some very nice 5x7 or 8x10 pictures of an all wheel drive 720 or 740A machine. Looked wicked with it's big dark one piece door glass. The kind of pictures that would make a 440 Wabco operator start to drool.
More old Champion Grader pics
Champion Great pictures,thanks for sharing.Years back the Department of Highways here used graders for plowing the local highway by-pass,as well as plow trucks.One of the grader operators was a real cowboy,and he would really get rolling along with a 4-71Detroit powered D-562.He would stop at the lights and have the hand throttle wide open and just leave it like that.That old 4-71 would just about stall out when he'd let the clutch out,but did it sound good.Remember waking up for school in the morning and would hear that thing just howling down the road.Excellent:drinkup Dominion
Great pictures i learnt on a old d600 Thank you
History of Champion Graders greetings am NEW to the Forum, and have a background as a 23 year employee and Parts Manager for the Champion Sales Co in Ontario Canada. We were a division of the Champion factory in Goderich. l have some old time pics, and some material from the factory - which l can post after "probation". Thanks to the Abernathies and the "NEW" Champion for getting this thread started!
Welcome to HEF graderfan! Look forward to seeing your pictures!
Champion Sales Company....a successful factory owned Dealership. Something not too many manufacturers can brag about. Such a shame that it was ripped apart but I can't comment too much being that the new occupants are my dealer! Hey graderfan....in a couple weeks we are going to go retro and bring back one of the greatest marketing slogans Champion ever used! Stay tuned for more.
History of Champion Graders Decemeber 15,2009 Article (with pic) from the Goderich SignalStar newspaper: http://www.goderichsignalstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2233199 Two Volvo 960 graders left Goderich by truck, destined for Egypt.(Probably held for finance placement) Sadly, it represented the last time that road graders would be seen leaving the town limits of Goderich.
History of Champion Graders There is a group of ex-Champion employees and enthusiasts in the Goderich area who who belong to an antique Champion Club (sorry - no contact info at the moment), and actively promote their love of Champion in the area. A couple of years ago they were in a smalltown parade south of Goderich with a couple only of their projects, as attached. (earliest is 1913ish, and the second is 1950 l believe) (Somewhere l have pics of a parade in Goderich - going thru the downtown, with a couple of antiques, followed by a current at the time, and then followed by a 100T (the 100ton big mother grader!) That IS a grader - l'll save some pics of that one for a separate thread.)
model 507 l posted a pic yesterday of a 1950 Champion - 4 wheel. Don't know if anyone notices in looking it over - but not only is it just a 4 wheel grader - it is an ALL WHEEL DRIVE grader!!! Champion "introduced" their optional AWD models in the mid-80's (l think - but my memory isn't what it used to be!) - but model 507 in the early 50's was an AWD! l have attached from the Champion newsletter (Champchatter) a copy of the sales flyer (with a retype of info in case not clear).
we sold some gallion graders a few years back they were millatry spec to the FFA they had 10 ft mobords for easy transport man they look short.
Glad to find this thread. I live about an hour south of Goderich, and am the owner of a 1960 562C that came off that line. Might even be in one of those pictures. 6 speeds forward and reverse, 4 cylinder 495 inch cummins engine. Most were 2 stoke detroits........... Use this thing about a hundred hours a year on driveways, parking lots, horse tracks etc. Drive a series 3 720 at work, and occasionally a series4 740, and a 2007 volvo (municipal). The old 562 will do everything the others do, just isn't quite as handy. Currently looking for a GOOD picture of the green leaf emblemthe side of the cab that I can use to get a new sticker made, my 8 year old son is helping me paint the grader so we can do the local parade thing, and the sticker would really set it off. BTW, factory colour on this one is orange, not yellow. Any help with finding a good picture would be greatly appreciated!
BTW, I know where there's one of those 50's four wheel drive machines about 5 miles from me. Came with a chrysler flathead 6.......... Tried to buy it before I bought the 562, but it wasn't for sale..
The municipality in my former home town had an old Champion grader I think the guys said it was a 1975 model and it had a Waukesha engine in it. I dont remember the model number of the grader but I sure remember hearing that engine roar when they were plowing the roads with it. I know a guy who has the same one or similar but his has a Detroit in it.
245DLC what area of winnipeg are you from? Cartier municipality had champions they got rid of them last year for 2 JD 772's
Well I live near Grace Hospital, but I'm from Pinawa originally.
I worked in central Argentina in Patagonia in 1999 and the region was still using an old 1972 Champion (CCM??) grader on gravel roads there. We used it to grade the roads to and in the mine site we were in the process of demolishing. Worked very well and the operator was very excited that I was a Canadian and knew of them and Goderich and never failed to show me the Maple leaf emblem. I am so sad to hear that they are gone forever out of Goderich. I know that our municipality was buying Champions (Volvo later on). We're upset that Cat shut down its locomotive plant here in London and we will need a replacement at some time that isn't Cat!!!
Did yours have a detroit deisel or a cummins? I've got an old (1960) 562 with a cummins and I'm an hour west of London. Probably looks a lot liek the '72 you were talking about. Still works fine, does a few driveways, parking lots, horsetracks, etc. Our municipality was almost all Champion, went Volvo when they made the switch. Starting to run into problems. Last 2 were JD and Case.....
Otto, John Deere is the only option. You just dont see many Case, Komatsu or New holland graders around here. After the volvo thing & then the cat fiasco both in Ontario...Spend them tax dollars wisely London! Ya, John Deere...My 2 cents
Motor Grader: I forgot to say, Thank you for posting the wonderful old pics. I bet theres a few guys going over your pictures to see if they know anyone in the photos, you know a relative or neighbour & Thanks for keeping a great name around when far to many are disappearing. You guys need to look at going up a size or two with your line or do you have infringement clauses ??
I think you'll find that when Volvo sold them back the line of small graders they probably had an agreement about size.... If I have this figured out right, he's a member of the group (family?) that sold their small grader to Champion back in the day, and got it back (plus the name) when Volvo (who bought Champion) didn't want either any more. Always wanted to try one of those little ones..... saw one at a Roads association show in Norwich back in the day, but Bob Smith wouldn't let me take it for a toot around the ball diamond at the show.... (held at the fairgrounds)
Hey guys, I haven't been on here in a long time. You are correct in that we have a weight/horsepower threshold that I can not cross and still use the Champion name. However we did build a couple of prototype 24,000 / 133hp graders. Very comparable to the JD570B. Economy brought the whole product launch to a halt.
Nice iron, we have come a long way in the art of building rds
Here the site with interesting pictures from older graders: https://www.facebook.com/WhereHaveAllTheChampionGradersGone/photos_stream
The homepage from champion graders is not available anymore: http://championmotorgraders.com Does someone know what happend?
Good Photos. I the 70's I worked for a shop that was a Champion dealer. The photos brought back memories.
BLH lima I have a blh Lima dragline and it has no serial numbers on it it weighs 210k has 80' boom and a 4 cry bucket any hope for finding the numbers for it
I don't know why in the forum the word s t r e a m is not alloed, but here another link: https://www.facebook.com/WhereHaveAllTheChampionGradersGone/photos
I saw a 1996 JD 570B for sale nearby. New paint, looked good and the price was $44K. I believe that it was on Machinery Trader. In regards to Brian Abernathy 2013 post above, I think that he had a good idea to produce a replacement for that size of a machine with all the functions of the bigger grader. It would fit the bill for many smaller municipalities. For me the economics of 570 series are superior to bigger machines.
Hey guys...I've been gone for a while. Figured its time I get back on here. Been through hell and back but thats another story for another day. I ran across this thread and thought I'd start letting people know what happened to Champion Compact Motor Graders. We did sell the C80 and C86 design to LeeBoy. They rebranded it the LBP G-700. At ConExpo I noticed they had it branded LeeBoy 695. Honestly I have no idea what they are doing! I think the LeeBoy 685 is still in production though. We (Champion) did have an agreement with LeeBoy to keep producing the grader for them. It was going pretty good but we had the rug pulled out from under us and they brought in house to build. That pretty much crushed us. I saw comments about the website...yes due to $$$ I couldn't afford to pay my marketing agency to keep it going. My Dad still builds parts (the best he can). He is a one man show now. 30 employees down to 1. Sad story. I even had to leave and find another job. Thats kinda it in a nut shell. If you or anybody you know needs parts please contact [email protected]
Thanks for the update Bryan. Sad news. I never had much to do with compact graders, but I would sure like to see full size graders reappear with the Champion name. I started on a series 3 730 operated 720's to 750's in series 3's to 5's (and a Volvo G720 with the Deutz engine after that) and it's a real shame to see a good product gone. Wish you the best on your present ventures.
Yes, really sad news, but thanks for your answer what happened to Champion. I wish you all the best for the future.