19/06/2026
British … is saying it mildly
The LeTourneau LT-360 was one of those machines that almost sounds made up.
Unveiled in August 1965, it was the largest self-loading scraper R.G. LeTourneau had ever put together. Beauty wasn’t the point. LeTourneau equipment was built around function first, and the LT-360 followed that logic to the extreme.
The first version came from the experimental LT-240 platform, with another scraper section added to create a much larger twin-bowl machine. Power came from two Detroit Diesel 12V-71N engines and six 16V-71 engines. Together, they produced 4,760 gross horsepower and 4,536 flywheel horsepower.
Drive was just as unusual.
The original LT-360 used 12 internal wheel electric traction motors, keeping with LeTourneau’s long obsession with diesel-electric earthmoving. But the design was still evolving.
By March 1966, the experimental machine appeared again with major changes. The revised LT-360 dropped the earlier engine layout and went with eight Detroit Diesel 16V-71 engines. Output climbed to 5,080 gross horsepower and 4,872 flywheel horsepower.
The wheel layout changed too. Instead of 12 drive wheels, the new version used eight, cutting the turning radius and making the 200-foot machine less awkward to handle.
Its numbers were wild even by 1960s LeTourneau standards.
The LT-360 could load its combined 216-cubic-yard bowls with 360 tons of earth in about 80 seconds.
It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t subtle.
It was LeTourneau doing what LeTourneau did best: building a monster around a problem and letting the engineering speak first.
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