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Roadless
Traction Ltd was first registered on the 14/03/1919. The company was
developed by Lieutenant Col. Philip Johnson born in 1877 he lived till
he was 88 years old and was the MD of Roadless for 40 years. He went out
to the Boar War (South Africa) working with the steam transport, he was
then later offered a job at John Fowlers to sell steam equipment in
Indian. He came back to England in 1915 and was then involved in tank
development. He was allowed to keep his patent design that he had
designed during the war. In the 1920's he came out of the army to
concentrate on the Roadless business, first of all making tracks for
trucks and then moved on to tracks on agricultural crawlers. He then
went on in the 1930, 40's & mid 50's to design the 1/2 track for most
popular makes of tractors.
4WD systems started in the mid 1950's. 7915 4WD tractors & kits were
built up until 1983 when the company ceased trading. The company was
then taken over by Jewells of Bridgewater who built a small number
of tractors to the Roadless design and re-named them Jewelltrac. This
company got in to financial difficulty in the late 1980's and the parts
side of the business was taken over by Roger Haynes who had previously
been associated with Roadless testing out there new designs. He then
sold the business to Dave Pantry in the mid 1990's. Dave continued
selling the parts to tractor collectors throughout the UK.
We then took over the business in June 2007. We bought & sold new and
s/h Roadless tractors in there working day and were actually the last
dealer appointed by Roadless to sell new tractors in 1982. We only sold
2 new tractors before the company was wound up in 1983.
We are still in the process of unpacking
& cataloguing a very large quantity of parts & drawings.
We have over 40,000 original
drawings which have been moved in to a purpose built office so they can
be stored and stop them from deteriorating further. Amongst the drawings
are some very rare and delicate finds.
We have the original serial number
books enabling us to find when each tractor was originally sold & who
to. If you provide us with your serial number we can tell you about your
tractor, which will be sent to you on an official ROADLESS letterhead
for a small charge.

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