The history of “towing” devices or carriages goes back well before the era of motorization. Agriculture was a very early use. Tilling the fields with the hoe was hard work and so the plow was invented early on, which was pulled by horses, cows or other farm animals. On old wall paintings that were discovered in pyramids you can see that the Egyptians already had plows hauled by animals at the time of the Pharaonic Empire. Although the first tractors appeared with the industrial revolution in the 19th century, animal-pulled plows were also common in Europe until the middle of the 20th century. In poorer countries this is still the common method today because tractors are too expensive there.
The first motorized tugs came up around 1900 – tractors powered by steam engines. The wheels were not yet made of rubber but made of iron. The steam engine-powered tractors were very heavy and therefore very slow with about 8km/h. They were also prohibitively expensive for most farmers.
The Fordson from 1917, developed and built by Henry Ford, is considered the first tow-tractor in today’s sense. As it was common at Ford back then, it was built on an assembly line and thus affordable for owners of smaller farms. It had a three-speed gearbox with reverse gear and a carburetor engine. For many years it was a model for subsequent designs from other manufacturers.
In Europe, the German companies Lanz and Hanomag were leading manufacturers. However, Hanomag first brought an adequate answer to the Fordson on the market in 1927 with its RD28 model.
Pneumatic tires began to gain acceptance from the 1930s. These had the advantage that tires no longer had to be constantly changed. Because the steel tires used in the field had to be replaced with elastic tires on the road.
In addition to tractors used in the fields, many other areas of application for tow-tractors developed. Anyone who has ever undertaken a flight trip will have noticed the tugs pulling the wagons with the suitcases. Much more impressive are the tugs that can pull even the largest aircraft such as the Boing 747 or the Airbus A380 with over 1,000 hp. In municipal technology, tow-tractors are used with a wide variety of attachments that are driven via the PTO shaft for many different applications, such as clearing snow or mowing. They are also used in industry. Mostly as an electric tow-tractor, as noise and exhaust emissions are particularly important indoors. This also includes self-driving tractors that automatically bring trolleys with production material from the warehouse to the points of use in production.