Terex tractor arrives in Clarendon from Scotland

Darrell Leffew and Stan Leffew look over the Terex S17-E tractor from Scotland, which will be married to a locally produced scrapper.
Enterprise Digital Photo.

After a seven-month delay, a tractor from Scotland finally arrived in Clarendon last week.

The tractor, which was initially to have been here December 1, 1999, will be hooked up to a 17-yard scraper built by Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing.

Clarendon Operations Director Stan Leffew says testing of the S-17E prototype will begin within the next two weeks, and the unit is tentatively scheduled to be unveiled in the latter part of August.

Changes in the design of the transmission and engine of the S-17E were responsible for the tractor’s delayed arrival, Leffew said. Also, the Scotland company, Terex Equipment Limited, had another unit in production that had to be completed before the S-17E tractor.

The tractor started its trans-Atlantic voyage from South Hampton, England, on June 19 and arrived in Galveston on July 3. Clarendon’s president and general manager, Darrell Leffew, arrived here with the tractor last Thursday.

When the S-17E is in full production, it will compete head to head with similar models of earthmovers made by Cat, Leffew said.

Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing Co. has been in business since 1971. The local firm hopes to land a contract to produce 50 of the scrapers for Terex, which is based in Motherwell, Scotland, and has offices in the United States.