cotton - Greenmount Press

CLASSIC TRACTOR TALES
Adolphe Kégresse and his
crawler tracks
■ By Ian M. Johnston
Following the outbreak of the turbulent Russian
revolution of 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, whose cruelty and
despotism were legendary, was dragged into prison by a
jeering mob of Bolshevik revolutionists. A year or so later,
In July 1918, at a place called Ekaterinburg, he was taken
out and shot along with other members of The Russian
Royal Family.
The Rolls Royce
Nicholas II had been a keen hunter and enjoyed roaming his
vast estates in the rear of his absurdly ostentatious Rolls Royce
Silver Ghost open tourer. In addition to the chauffeur, he was
usually accompanied by an Officer of The Imperial Guard, whose
job it was to provide the Tsar with a loaded rifle should a bear or
wolf present itself. But if it proved to be a dreary day and no such
luckless animal appeared, Nicholas could always take a pot shot
at the odd peasant labourer or two – to while away the time.
A heavy snow fall greeted the arrival of the bitter winter of
1916. The Tsar entered a state of apoplectic rage when the Rolls
Royce failed to proceed! It had slipped into a snow drift and
bogged! He had two alternatives. Shoot the chauffeur or send
him off to fetch a draught horse. The horse arrived but alas
history does not record the ultimate fate of the chauffeur!
But no snow fall was going to prevent Nicholas from
continuing with his hunting trips!
Adolphe Kégresse, the French technical manager of the
Imperial Garages was summoned. He was ordered to render the
Rolls Royce bog proof! A tall order indeed, but failure to carry out
an instruction from the Tsar could result in much unpleasantness,
including experiencing the ambience of the chamber of horrors
administered by Gregory Yefimovich Novykh’s (Rasputin), the mad
mystic upon whose guidance the Tsar depended!
So Kégresse set to work with an unusual degree of anxious
energy.
He had observed the effectiveness, in boggy conditions, of
heavy steel crawler tracks fitted to tractors and military vehicles.
But with the limited engineering resources available within the
Imperial Garages, he determined it would be impossible to
convert the Rolls Royce into a conventional full track crawler
vehicle.
But Adolphe Kégresse was a born innovator. He extended the
massive chassis of the big car and attached a second rear axle
of the ‘lazy’ type, i.e. non-driving. He then fitted four relatively
small diameter wheels with pneumatic tyres to the two rear
axles. The harness maker was then called in to make two endless
rubberised fabric belts, which could be wrapped around the
outer circumference of each pair of rear wheels whilst the tyres
were deflated.
It was a simple matter then to inflate the four tyres, which
served to increase their diameter. This in turn, stretched the belts
and held them in place by friction engagement around the tyres.
The Tsar was ecstatic when he witnessed the test of his
modified Rolls Royce being driven through snow drifts and sloppy
mud without even a sensation of hesitation. Kégresse was richly
rewarded for his endeavours.
André Citroen
In 1917, with the Tsars family entombed in jail, the Bolsheviks
commenced rounding up all the unfortunate individuals who had
been close to The Royal Family. The name of Kégresse was on the
list. Following a harrowing overland journey, and leaving behind
a number of cars which he had converted to friction engagement
The Kégresse principle of belt (track) engagement to the
driving wheel. (A sketch by the author)
TOP: An archival photo taken by Adolphe Kégresse in 1924
showing two of the cars in the Trans - Sahara Expedition,
meeting up with an astonished group of Bedouin tribesmen,
who had possibly never before sighted a motor vehicle.
(IMJ archives)
BOTTOM: The expedition negotiating the sand dunes in
Algeria. (IMJ archives)
52 — The Australian Cottongrower December 2012–January 2013