August Fruehauf
August Fruehauf was an American blacksmith and carriage builder in Detroit who built a semi-trailer in 1914 to be pulled by a Ford Model T and founded the Fruehauf Trailer Company in 1918.
What they did and why it matters
Fruehauf's semi-trailer separated the load-carrying trailer from the power unit, the basic configuration of nearly all US freight trucks today. By resting the front of a trailer on the tractor, a small truck could pull a much heavier load, and one tractor could swap between trailers. His company later introduced the automatic fifth-wheel coupling in 1926 and refrigerated trailers. Drop-trailer programs, where a carrier leaves an empty trailer at a warehouse dock to be loaded, and the dry van and reefer trailers that carry freight between distribution centers rely on his design.
Related people
Sources
- August Fruehauf (Automotive Hall of Fame) automotivehalloffame.org
- Fruehauf Trailer Corporation (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org