Carco, a member of the Paccar winch family, is celebrating 90 years of delivering innovation and engineered performance to the tractor tail winch industry.

The first Carco winches were introduced in 1932 for the Pacific Northwest logging industry for use with cleat tractors and logging arches. Developed alongside the world’s first track driven dozers, Carco quickly became a staple in forestry, construction, and pipeline applications.

The origins of Carco are tied to metallurgist Alex Finlayson who was working for Pacific Car and Foundry (now Paccar). Finlayson is credited for developing a new metal with low-carbon content but high in manganese. With twice the strength of basic steel, and good for annealed castings with a degree of elastic strength, Carcometal was patented and used by engineers to design a line of winches, arches, and hoists that offered superior service and longer machine life.

The first Carco production model winch, the HS-101, was the first tractor winch with a fully housed gear train and anti-friction bearings in an oil bath, cutting maintenance expenses and reducing downtime for repairs.

Over the last 90 years, subsequent generations of Carco products have continued to set the standard for tractor winches, creating a balance of pulling power, speed, and overall machine control. Today’s equipment is designed to adapt to multiple working environments while improving operator comfort, reducing fatigue, and creating safer, more productive lifting and pulling environments.

Line pull capacities on Carco winches and hoists range from 18,000 to 200,000 lbs., including skidder and sideboom applications. Configuration options include freespool, drive-away, and powered reel out. Variable speed and proportional load control offer optimal handling capabilities. In addition, multiple drive options are available including PTO (power take off), open loop hydraulic, and closed loop hydraulic.

The newest Carco tail winch, the H50 Hystat, includes a dedicated closed loop hydrostatic circuit and is equipped with market-leading electronic controls. This introduction propels Carco to the forefront of compatibility in the 50,000 lbs. line pull class in terms of working with contemporary crawler dozers outfitted with smart machine technology.

In 1980, Paccar formed the Paccar winch division to include Carco, Braden, and Gearmatic. Sales and manufacturing for the three brands were moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, in 1985.