Fiatallis (1983 to early 2000s, Fiat-Allis 1974 to 1982), was a

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

heavy equipment Heavy equipment, heavy machinery, earthmovers, construction vehicles, or construction equipment, refers to heavy-duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving earthwork operations or other large con ...

(also called construction equipment, earthmoving equipment, or engineering vehicles), such as loaders,

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large tractor equipped with a metal #Blade, blade at the front for pushing material (soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock) during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous tracks, ...

backhoe A backhoe is a type of excavating equipment, or excavator, consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm. It is typically mounted on the back of a tractor or loader (equipment), front loader, the latter forming a "backh ...

s, scrapers, and

grader A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, motor grader, or simply blade, is a form of heavy equipment with a long blade used to create a flat surface during Grading (engineering), grading. Although the earliest models were towed b ...

s. It began in January 1974, when

Allis-Chalmers Allis-Chalmers was a United States, U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various Industry (economics), industries. Its business lines included list of agricultural machinery, agricultural equipment, heavy equipment, construction equipment, electric ...

's construction equipment business was reorganized into a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

with Fiat SpA,.. which bought a 65% majority stake at the outset. Allis-Chalmers's construction equipment business was often unprofitable during the 1950s and 1960s. It faced stiff competition from companies such as

Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

Case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

, International Harvester,

Euclid Euclid (; ; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely domina ...

John Deere Deere & Company, Trade name, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, Transmission (mechanical device), transmi ...

, Fiat MMT, and several others. The 1974 formation of a new company, Fiat-Allis Construction Machinery Inc., was essentially a

divestment In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...

for Allis-Chalmers so that capital could be redirected to their other more profitable divisions. In December 1980, Fiat-Allis Construction Machinery Inc. announced they would be closing the former Tractomotive wheel loader factory in Deerfield, Illinois, and transferring all wheel loader and grader production to their Springfield, Illinois, factory. In 1983, the company was renamed Fiatallis. with a new corporate logo, and about a year later the North American headquarters was relocated from Deerfield, Illinois, to their parts depot in Carol Stream, Illinois. As the joint venture progressed, Fiat continued to invest in Fiat-Allis and Fiatallis much more than their partner Allis-Chalmers and eventually increased their ownership stake to 85% in the early 1980's. The two parent firms disagreed on decisions made about Fiatallis and Allis-Chalmers was struggling financially, so the joint venture was ended in November 1985 when Fiat bought out Allis-Chalmers's remaining minority stake. In October 1985, Fiatallis closed their remaining North American factory in Springfield, Illinois, and transferred all remaining production to their Italian and Brazilian factories. In 1986, Fiatallis and Hitachi formed a joint venture called Fiat-Hitachi Excavators S.p.A. to manufacture excavators in Italy. In January 1988, Fiat combined their Fiatallis construction equipment subsidiary and their Fiatagri S.p.A. agricultural equipment subsidiary into the new Fiat Geotech S.p.A. holding company. In July 1992, Fiat announced another joint venture between their Fiat Geotech subsidiary, and Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited that was called Fiat-Hitachi Construction Equipment S.p.A. The joint venture with

Hitachi () is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1910 and headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company is active in various industries, including digital systems, power and renewable ener ...

yielded Fiat-Hitachi and Fiatallis construction machinery branding for different markets until 2002 when Hitachi terminated the agreement. After Fiat S.p.A. purchased Case Corporation in 1999 and formed CNH, they eventually retired the Fiatallis brand within a few years in their remaining markets and merged the company's assets with others from

and New Holland. CNH's construction equipment lines are called

New Holland Construction New Holland Construction is a multinational Heavy equipment, construction machinery manufacturer founded in New Holland, Pennsylvania, and now based in Turin, Italy. New Holland Construction produces construction equipment including Backhoe, ba ...

and

Case Construction Equipment Case Construction Equipment (stylized as CASE Construction Equipment, commonly referred to as simply Case) is an Italian-American manufacturer of construction machinery. Along with CASE IH, Case Construction Equipment is a brand of CNH. Case pro ...

. In Argentina, Fiat-Allis was produced by Crybsa. This product under license 605-B excavator, C-130 and the crawler tractor 7D. The longtime site of wheel loader production in

Deerfield, Illinois Deerfield is a village in Lake County, Illinois, Lake and Cook County, Illinois, Cook counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. A northern Chicago metropolitan area, suburb of Chicago, Deerfield is located on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore, ...

, at 500 Lake Cook Road is now the corporate location for Caterpillar, Inc.

References

Cited sources

* * * {{Allis-Chalmers Construction equipment manufacturers of the United States Fiat Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company