| Kenworth
The Kenworth truck history starts when the Gerlinger Motor Car Company was founded in 1912 by brothers George T. Gerlinger and Louis Gerlinger, Jr. as a car and truck dealershipin Portland, Oregon. In 1914, they decided to build their own commercial truck using a more powerful inline six-cylinder powerplant, an industry first. The Gersix, unveiled in 1915, was a powerful truck framed in structural steel making the truck ideal for the mountainous Northwest. In 1916 the Gerlinger Motor Car Company moved to Tacoma, Washington. While the Gersix was successful, Gerlinger Motor Car Company was struggling, and in 1917, Louis Gerlinger offered the manufacturing operation for sale. Edgar K. Worthington, their landlord's son and property manager, jumped at the opportunity. Together with his partner, Captain Frederick Kent, they created the Gersix Manufacturing Company to continue making the powerful six-cylinder truck. Trucks and motor coaches were assembled in individual bays rather than on a conventional assembly line. In 1919 Frederick Kent retired and his son, Harry Kent, became Edgar's new partner and they founded Kenworth in 1923, taking the first letters from their two names. In 1933 Kenworth became the first truck maker in the United States to switch from gasoline to diesel internal combustion engines. In the early 1940s, Kenworth began branching out into bus production with their buses bearing the "Pacific" name after their parent company "Pacific Car and Foundry Company." Kenworth was also one of the first to come out with a cab-over-engine, or COE, model in 1957. Today, Kenworth is a manufacturer of medium and heavy-duty Class 8 trucks based in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. It is a subsidiary of PACCAR.
http://www.kenworth.com/
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