When we first posted photos of this model and we thought Ralph Ratcliffe's imagination had gotten the better of him, we (and Ralph) had no idea that his "design" wasn't really that far off target for a purpose built machine used in the oil patch. As fellow modeler John Ross pointed out, this design is very similar to the design of vehicles used in off-road seismic exploration of oil and natural gas albeit with a single engine instead of Ralph's twin engine configuration! Check this link to similar vehicle designs.

Ralph says his model started out as an idea to build a small, overpowered tractor, then it just got out of hand and turned into a monster. Since Ralph didn't give us any further information the best description we could come up with is "Twin Engine All Wheel Drive All Purpose Articulated Tractor." All the components used to build the model come from various Ralph Ratcliffe Models resin kits or were scratchbuilt specifically for this model. Ralph used a pair of his Detroit Diesel 12V-71 engines with added twin turbochargers in correct factory Alpine Green paint, operator's cab and planetary wheel sets and off-road tires from his Mack M65/75 series dump trucks, and various details from his catalog.

Posted September 25, 2013