Word: crawlers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...marginal and not-so-marginal contractors, there is much temptation to get cut-rate gear in order to avoid the enormous inflation in heavy equipment prices. Example: an International Harvester crawler loader costs $72,000, up from $45,000 five years...
Thieves sell such machines at bargain prices: a stolen $60,000 International crawler tractor was offered at $35,000 to one potential buyer, who became suspicious and called the cops. Usually this equipment is left on the job site when work crews head home. Watchmen are too expensive for many contractors, and the ones that are posted are easily overpowered by thieves. Says Hugh Goulding, vice president of Howell Tractor and Equipment Co., "The thieves simply winch it onto a lowboy trailer and drive it away...
Some of the stolen equipment is enormous. A 50-ton crawler bulldozer was stolen from a Chicago-area dealer and hauled away on a weekend, when this kind of equipment is forbidden on the highways. A full 13½ ft- wide, the machine is worth $130,000. It was later traced through Indiana and finally disappeared forever in the coal-mining area of Kentucky...