The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive (4WD), was a pioneering American company that developed and produced all-wheel drive vehicles. It was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Drive Auto Company by Otto Zachow and William Besserdich. The first production facility was built in 1911 and was designed by architect Wallace W. DeLong of Appleton, Wisconsin. FWD renamed FWD Corporation and its associates Seagrave, Baker Aerialscope, and Almonte Fire Trucks were sold in 2003 to an investment group headed by former American LaFrance executive James Hebe. Today, the Seagrave Fire Apparatus group is a flagship company of ELB Capital Management. History Zachow and Besserdich developed and built their first successful four-wheel drive (4x4) car, the "Battleship", in 1908. Its success led to the founding of the company. "Badger" was dropped from the name in 1910. Besserdich and Zachow's patented full time four wheel drive system combined a lockable center differential with double-Y constant velocity universal joints for steering. In modern terms the "Battleship" would be considered all wheel drive, as all FWD products featured full-time four wheel drive with a lockable center differential. The success of the four-wheel drive in early military tests prompted the company to switch from cars to trucks. In 1916 the U.S. Army ordered 147 Model B three ton trucks for the Pancho Villa Expedition. The U.S. Army ordered 15,000 FWD Model B three ton trucks as the "Truck, 3 ton, Model 1917" during World War I with over 14,000 actually delivered; additional orders came from the United Kingdom and Russia. In two world wars, U.S. and allied armies depended on such four-wheel drive vehicles. Numerous FWD model B trucks, both military and civilian, survive in working condition; a Model 1917 U.S. Army truck in working condition is on display at the Fort MacArthur Military Museum, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. Early FWD vehicles were made with a track width of so they could quickly be used on a standard gauge railway line merely by changing the wheels. The FWD Model B was produced under license by four additional manufacturers during World War I: Peerless Motor Company, Cleveland, Ohio; Kissel Motor Car Company, Hartford, Wisconsin; Premier Motor Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana; and Mitchell Motor Car Company, Racine, Wisconsin. Three FWD Model B trucks were included in the 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy. According to 1st Lt. E.