The seller has this cool, tough, unusual 4×4 tug with four-wheel-steering listed as a 1973, but the info included on the photo of the data plate shows it as a 1975, so that’s what I’m going with. This 1975 American-Coleman Aircraft Tug is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Clay, New York, and the seller is asking $6,500. Here is the original listing, and thanks to T.J. for the tug tip!
How does The American-Coleman Company, a Littleton, Colorado-based firm that made aircraft tugs and other massively powerful pulling machines, have a better VIN decoder online than International-Harvester does for its trucks?! We don’t get to see all four wheels turning, or turned, on this truck, but they all do turn, or steer, I should say. Four-wheel steering, I’ve never experienced it, not even on a third-gen Honda Prelude. The axle shafts are one-piece forged units and can be removed without jacking up the tug.
This is the only photo showing the rear of this tug, unfortunately. The seller has provided pretty good photos otherwise, so that’s a bit surprising. An adjustable, custom-built hitch that goes up and down by remote? Yes, please, what a great idea. These rigs weigh around 11,000 pounds, so about half of what a Cybertruck weighs. Just kidding. Although the Cybertruck also has four-wheel steering, now that I think about it, and I don’t think about them too often. I’d rather have a Honda Prelude. This tug has 12 inches of ground clearance and is 13.5 feet long, 6′-8″ wide, and 8 feet tall. With the beacon, it’s about 8′-7″ tall, so watch your garage door height. It has a top speed of 24 mph in fourth gear.
The 11.00-20 tires are just over 40″ tall, in case you were wondering. I love this thing! And all four of them are powered and all four steer, as I’ve mentioned. The front wheels operate via a mechanical linkage and hydraulic “booster cylinder” and the steering wheel. The rear wheels operate somewhat the same, other than the steering wheel is only for turning the front wheels; the rear wheels are turned by the lever to the left of the steering wheel. The rear wheels return to the straight position as soon as you release that lever; very cool. Believe it or not, this tug has just a 15-foot turning radius! Here’s another photo showing some of the controls in this rig. And, a partial photo of the underside, just for the heck of it.
The engine is a Chrysler-sourced industrial 318-cu.in. OHV V8 with 140 horsepower and 220 lb-ft of torque. How many of you instantly heard that starter in your mind? The G-40-E model had points, but the G-40-F, as seen here, has an electronic ignition, and it has a four-speed Allison automatic transmission; four speeds forward and one speed in reverse going to all four wheels. You don’t want to shift manually when you’re towing 100,000 pounds, which is the weight limit for this model. Would any of you have a use for this, or do you just want it as I do because it’s cool as heck?
Scotty!!! Wow!!! Barnfinds is hitting them right out of the park! We have huge 15000 pound capacity fork lifts, and now an airplne tug? The 4 wheel drive and 4 wheel steering I’m sure helped get the plane right exactly where it needed to be. Thats got to be some beefy Allison automatic to handle the 100000 pound planes too. Cool find T.J. and great highly researched article too Scotty. This is one of the many reasons I’m on here every day. You just never know what will pop up and what you might be able to learn. Thank you!!!
This is very likely ex-USAF. These were common on flight lines on most USAF bases that hosted aircraft. Boeing says that a fully loaded B-52 maximum takeoff weight is 488,000 pounds (aircraft alone is about 190,000 pounds). These could pull a B-52 easily. I used to watch F-4/RF-4 crew chiefs and mechanics move aircraft around with these when I was stationed in Thailand. I used to own a number of ex-USAF vehicles, and I always wanted to purchase one of these to keep them company. Unfortunately, most of them have significantly more rust on them than this one. Many were given to local airports or were sold as surplus. Actually, there is a derelict looking one, same color as this, at my local airport. Hmmm…
I need to correct myself. While this unit is suitable for smaller aircraft, like fighters, the Cold War vintage Coleman CF-55-AF is the tug that I was thinking of that I used to watch pull B-52s around at Walker AFB In New Mexico as a child. If you think that this is BIG and ugly, it looks like a toy compared to the CF-55-AF. It has a crewcab fabricated from two mid-50s Chevrolet truck cabs. It was originally designed to tow the B-36 bomber and other heavy USAF aircraft.
I have many hours behind the wheel of one of these. Through 21 years spent as a crew chief on F-4/16’s. We used them for stuffing jets into shelters all over the world. Rear wheel steering came in very handy when putting a jet into a sound suppressor (hush house) and the exhaust had to be perfectly centered on the hush house exhaust. Before we were allowed to turn it around and use the front pintle hook to push them in you had to back everything in. I always thought that was easier than using the front. Earlier models had a manual trans with an electric clutch and later ones a diesel engine. Another memory of days gone by.
Thanks for your service. There were no “hush houses” in Thailand (apparently, the USAF realized how many people’s hearing that they had damaged). I’m jealous.
The USAF ran an advertisement for crew chiefs and maintainers back in the day, with an airman holding a toolbox standing in front of the raised nose of a C-5 Galaxy. The caption read: “Tell me where it hurts.”
Here’s the “Big Ugly”
https://bringatrailer.com/2016/11/15/b-36-peacemaker-tow-rig-1950s-coleman-cf-55-af-tug/
GMC Sierra (C3 if I remember correctly ) sold a rear wheel steering pickup. (2004?) It did not sell well. (I sold a couple) It rode terribly as the unsung weight was considerable. BUT once you got the hang of it. Parking a trailer was a breeze. You had a controller on the dash that turned off the system or allowed “same turn as front wheels” or “opposite as front wheels”. Turning on the rear steer limited the speed to 15 mph. So the “real fun” factor was eliminated. The following year’s of production the option was only on the Denali package.
Wow, great find, love it! I’d want it around just for its sheer immensity and great “face”…
Exactly why my wife keeps me around…
Understandably, I agree, pretty cool. Not to upstage the author in any way, more of an “addition” to his great writing. American Coleman was a leader in 4wd in trucks, dating back to 1922 when the Jeffrey Quad proved how valuable AWD was after the war. If my facts are fuzzy, by all means don’t be shy. Coleman lays claim to the 1st AWD, but FWD beat them in 1911. I think Moon trucks utilized Coleman AWD, and after WW2, everyone jumped on the AWD bandwagon. Coleman began a conversion business, much like NAPCO. I can’t find a conversion cost, but it wasn’t cheap. it wasn’t cheap. Coleman used a unique coupling for the turning, not a U joint, but more like a giant CV joint, and I believe the customer dictated what motor. You wouldn’t put a Chrysler motor in a Ford conversion. They became Howe-Coleman in 1986 in Troy NY, but have ceased operations.
While this may have had a 100K rating, not with that manually cranked hitch, similar to mobile home “toters”, but more for like boat trailers or campers as shown. I bet you could make a living spotting boats at a busy landing, always a comical sight. Vice grip a nice touch, and didn’t Dodge Viper have an AWS?
I agree, this was some kind of ex-military unit, and probably has an impressive history. Very cool find.
Howard- there was a “Big Ugly” CF-55 posted on BF in Nov. 2016 that you commented on. Remember that? Ironically, a poster on BaT at the time for the same vehicle complained that it was falling down on the job, because BF had posted it a week prior. And, a year later, there was a different (open top) Colman tug on BF that both you and Geomechs commented on. If you are interested, use the BF search function at the top of the page- enter “Coleman tug”. Two listings will come up.
Not the Viper, but the Dodge Stealth and related Mitsubishi VR3000. Very cool truck for its capability alone.
I discovered that the owner of the Littleton, CO based company (then known as Coleman Motors) got interested in building race cars and entered 3 front-wheel drive cars in the 1929 Pikes Peak Hill Climb driven by three Unser brothers: Louis, Jerry, and Joe. In 1930, a car they entered in the Indianapolis 500 finished in 7th place. For the 1932 Indy, Coleman Motors built a four-wheel drive car with two engines, but it got wrecked before the race started.
Great comments, folks! I had totally forgotten that I (attempted to write) wrote one up in 2017:
https://barnfinds.com/big-lug-1968-american-coleman-aircraft-tug/
Nice find there, Godzilla!
H-A, the seller says that the unusual hitch is “remote-operated”, which I’m assuming means it’s powered? I’ll stick with tiny motorcycles, but this would be fun to own if a person had the room.
Pretty cool if you have a real use for it.
This would be great for off-road recovery when some numbscull thinks his truck or SUV is unstoppable Just make sure you hook it to something really solid because whatever you hook to is coming with you
There is a guy on Instagram named Bare Knuckle Binder who documented his discovery and restoration of a 1952 International L-122 with a Coleman conversion, that is supposedly the only one that ever existed. While there are writeups about it online (search for his username), he also has a YouTube channel that documents this discovery/restoration and other finds: https://youtu.be/nnEBo9JPsTw?si=U3TFq6vyQFNbwr8x
We had these in the ‘Force’. RF4C,F4D/E, and F16’s We moved aircraft onto Engine Run areas and had to be close to perfect to tie down the arresting hook for After burner runs. Fun-fun. It would ‘crab’ AND Tight circle. I think it was a lever that went left to right to pick where the wheels went at will. Marc.
Marc- you were obviously in the USAF after me- we had never even heard of an F-16. 🤔 My barracks in Thailand (a shack, actually) were some distance away from, but directly in line with the F-4 engine run up pad. When they hit full throttle or afterburner, the entire building shook and conversation was out of the question. We got really good at lip reading. I currently have severe hearing loss and a claim pending with the VA. As I recall, there was a big steel ring attached to the concrete pad, and the mechanics would drop the tail hook (surprisingly, even USAF F-4s had arresting hooks, like carrier aircraft) to engage the ring to restrain forward movement. This, combined with perpetual flights of three F-4s overflying the base prior to banking hard on final approach, mixed with full afterburner takeoffs, made for a very noisy environment. I really admired the guys that had AFSCs that required them to work outdoors in Thailand. It could be brutally hot and humid, not to mention the monsoon rains. A friend of mine was assembling an air to air missile in a non-air conditioned shop and passed out face down on top of it. My hat is off to you guys.
Four Wheel Steering – My RHD JDM 1991 Toyota Celica Convertible has it – it’s an oddity and talking point but one is never aware of it. I have never seen another car like mine in America though. Saw reference to another in Canada though. Anyone know anything about this 4WS??
Two uses. For hire at a boat ramp, yes tow your boat to the lake, but then let the guy with this take over, much less risk of losing your Land Rover into the water when your highway tires lose their grip on the wet ramp. Or, if you are an off road tow truck/recovery business, like the ones on YouTube, add it to the fleet for those way off the paved road recoveries.
I had a late friend who had a rather extensive and eclectic vehicle collection. Mostly his vehicles did not run. And they were packed into about 1/2 acre of ground. Which was a little crazy since he had 20 acres and no neighbors. When having to get one out meant .moving 3 others. He bought a 4 wheel steer airport tug. It was much smaller than this one. About the size of one of the tugs you see pulling baggage carts/trailers at the airport. But his was 4 wheel steer. It solved his multi vehicle move issues completely as both ends steered quite tight. It almost didn’t move forward when both ends were turned to max. Just seem to pivot in the center. It had a Chrysler industrial Hemi V8 engine
That would be fun in a big box store parking lot during the holidays.
That arrogant lady in the Escapade or Mercedes dare not cut you off!
If they do? you can park right on top of them.