Meet Oliver 2255, CBT's huge American brother!
Oliver is famous for its green tractors, which were made in Brazil together with Indústrias Pereira Lopes S.A., famous for making Climax brand refrigerators. The subsidiary was called Companhia Brasileira de Tratores (CBT), based in São Carlos (SP), and made the 950 model with a 6-cylinder, 5.1-litre Mercedes-Benz OM-312 engine and a power output of 75 hp at 1800 rpm.
But the head office in the United States was bought by White Trucks, a traditional lorry manufacturer notorious for its voracious appetite for buying up companies, including those in the agricultural machinery sector. As the buyer's intention was to absorb the brand, Pereira Lopes continued to manufacture the vehicles, but under the CBT brand.
So the CBT tractors continued to use the Oliver design, which employs a chassis, unlike conventional vehicles where the entire powertrain is exposed. In Brazil, the North American-designed models used Mercedes-Benz, Perkins and Detroit Diesel engines.
The giant 2255!
Although White's intention was to absorb the Oliver brand, the corporation couldn't take it off the market immediately as it was very traditional in the industry, so in the early 1970s Oliver launched the largest and most powerful tractor ever made by the company: the 2255, sales of which began in 1972.
The model's main attraction was the Caterpillar 3150 engine: a 9.4-litre naturally aspirated V8 with 147 hp at 2600 rpm. In 1974, however, it switched to the Caterpillar 3208, also aspirated, with 10.4 litres of the same power: 147 hp, only at 2800 rpm.
The bodywork and chassis were widened to fit the engine. The air filter was above the tractor, so they cut a hole in the body to fit it in, but it made maintenance much easier. The 2255 tractors earned a reputation for being very strong and powerful, even though they had a rather high engine speed for an agricultural vehicle.
The 2255, made in Charles City (Iowa), came with rear-wheel drive or 4×4 and had the option of an air-conditioned cab. In 1976, White decided to close down the brand and it was precisely a copy of the 2255 that was the last Oliver manufactured.
White's quick demise.
The “replacement” for the 2255 was the White 4-150 Field Boss - an articulated, silver model, which had started production in 1974 and used the same Caterpillar V8 as the 2255. Although White was a voracious buyer of companies, it couldn't manage that much power and went bankrupt in 1980.
Volvo acquired the truck division, whose products would be made until the White brand was completely absorbed in the 90s. Check out this video from Vehicles & Stories about the history of White and the arrival of Volvo in the United States:
In the agricultural business, White had bought not only Oliver, but also Minneapolis-Moline and Canada's Cockshutt. As the company declined, the agricultural division was sold to the Texan company TIC. It was later bought by the Allied Corporation, which renamed it White-New Idea. At the end of the 80s, Massey Ferguson, part of the AGCO group, bought White and absorbed it completely in the 90s.