Marking the 50th anniversary of an industry icon, this book celebrates a half-century of Bobcat with brilliant images of these quintessential heavy machines at work, including historical photographs and diagrams , alongside the full story of the only compact machines that have ever mattered. Much imitated but never equaled, the Bobcat skid-steer loader was born when some hardy souls in the Northern Plains needed a new way to get something done. The pictures in these pages show how the Bobcat loader has been moving industry ever since, joined over the years by Bobcat excavators and trenchers, utility trucks, and more. "Bobcat Fifty Years" chronicles the changes and innovations that have kept the company at the forefront of the nation's compact machinery makers - from the invention of the Bob-Tach quick-change attachment system to the introduction of the Big Bob, the Mini-Bob, and the M-700, the first hydrostatic loader of it's size. Here, again and again, is evidence of why "Fortune Magazine" named the Bobcat one of "America's best" - one of the top 100 products that represent the best of their kind, anywhere in the world.