Crown Forklift History: Electric by Design

Crown Equipment Corporation is headquartered in New Bremen, Ohio, where it says it began in 1945 as “a one-room operation in rural Ohio.”^[1] Its first products had nothing to do with lifting. Patents filed between 1928 and 1954 and assigned to the Dicke family’s companies cover furnace thermostats, a television antenna rotator and even a hunting arrow.^{[6][8][9][10]}

Company histories tell this story with round dates. This article dates each step to a document where one exists: the patents themselves, Crown’s own pages, releases, awards list and spec sheets, and named press reports. Where sources disagree, it says so and keeps both. It ends with the tire sizes Crown’s current spec sheets list. For sizes model by model, see Crown Forklift Tires: Sizes by Model.

Crown, Step by Step

Each row is a dated step and the document behind it. Where the only source is Crown’s own account or a single publication, the table says so.

1928–1947: Heat Regulators

The Dicke family was in the heating business before Crown existed, and two patents granted in 1932 show it. U.S. Patent 1,854,786, a “Thermostat” filed November 17, 1928, names Allen A. Dicke of Montclair, New Jersey, as inventor. U.S. Patent 1,857,531, a “Furnace regulator” filed March 20, 1929, names Oscar H. Dicke of Rochester, New York. Both are assigned to Pioneer Heat Regulator Corporation, a New Jersey corporation. Oscar’s patent covers the mechanism “for operating dampers and fuel flow control devices” on an automatic furnace.^[6][7]

The International Directory of Company Histories (1996) tells the family side. It says Carl Dicke founded Pioneer in the 1920s with his brothers Oscar and Allen: “Oscar invented a thermostat for coal-fired home furnaces; Allen, an attorney, patented the concept; and Carl marketed it.” It says the brothers sold Pioneer to Master Electric of Dayton during the Depression.^[12] The patents do not match that split: 1,854,786, the thermostat, names Allen as its inventor, and 1,857,531, the furnace regulator, names Oscar.^[6][7]

Crown dates itself to 1945. Its company page says “two brothers, the late Carl H. Dicke and Allen A. Dicke, founded the company in New Bremen, Ohio, in 1945.”^[1] The directory names three founders instead: “Carl, his son Jim, and brother Allen founded Crown Controls Company to market thermostats manufactured by Master Electric Company in 1945,” and it says the family bought the manufacturing operation back in 1947 for $85,000.^[12] Forbes, in 2007, also counted Jim, “fresh from military service,” and said the family “started making controls for coal-burning furnaces.”^[13] The patent record fits that start: Carl H. Dicke’s “Thermostat,” first filed March 13, 1946, was assigned “by mesne assignments” to Crown Controls Company, Inc., of New Bremen and granted in 1954. It describes a thermostat that runs a damper motor working the draft and check dampers of a heating plant.^[8]

1949–1957: Antenna Rotators

Coal was “quickly losing favor as a home heating fuel,” the directory says, and “on a hint from a business associate,” the Dickes began producing television antenna rotators in 1949.^[12] A Crown Controls patent filed that year matches. U.S. Patent 2,736,854, filed November 25, 1949, by Wilbert A. Will of New Bremen and assigned to Crown Controls Company, Inc., describes a motor-operated device “particularly adapted for use as an antenna rotator particularly for television and other short wave radiant energy reception devices.”^[9]

In 1952, by the directory’s account, Carl Dicke died at 50 and his son Jim, then 31, took over. In 1957 Crown turned the marketing of its rotators over to Channel Master Corporation of New York, and then it “cast about for new product ideas,” the directory says, among them “fishing arrowheads.”^[12] A hunting-arrow patent shows the idea was older than that sequence suggests. U.S. Patent 2,796,691, filed May 24, 1954, by William Norris of St. Marys, Ohio, assigned to Crown Controls and granted June 25, 1957, “relates to hunting arrows, and more particularly to the type of arrow which has a detachable arrowhead.” It is written for “bow and arrow fishing and hunting.”^[10]

The rotators outlasted the side projects by decades, but sources differ on when they ended. Forbes reported in 2007 that Crown phased them out in 2001; Wikipedia says production stopped in October 2000 but gives no source for that date.^[13][15]

1956–1965: The First Lift Trucks

How Crown came to lift trucks is told in one source. The directory says Jim Dicke’s father-in-law, Warren Webster, “suggested that Crown develop a ‘hydraulic lift table’ that would make lifting and moving heavy objects easier and safer,” and that engineer Tom Bidwell adapted a hydraulic auto jack Crown had built into the LT-500, “a ‘walkie lifter’ he designed in 1957.” It “featured a hand-pumped hydraulic lift and was pushed by hand like a cart.” Crown entered, the directory says, “a market that was already choked with well-entrenched competitors: Hyster, Clark, Yale, and Caterpillar, to name a few.”^[12]

The start date depends on the source. Wikipedia, citing By Design, says Crown shipped its first model in 1956.^[15] The directory dates the LT-500 to 1957.^[12] Crown’s own company page says “production of a line of high-quality lift trucks for intermediate-duty use began in 1960” and dates the company’s “entry into the material handling equipment industry” to 1960.^[1] We could not read By Design or find a dated document from the 1950s that settles it, so each year here is that source’s.

By 1964 Crown Controls was patenting a special-purpose electric truck. U.S. Patent 3,223,267, “Lift truck,” filed September 30, 1964, by Harold A. Stammen of New Bremen and assigned to Crown Controls Corporation, “relates to a lift truck and more particularly to a fork lift truck having pivoted tines.” It is “illustrated herein as adapted to engage and raise baskets of tobacco leaves.” The truck is “intended to employ an electric drive and lift motor (not shown) powered by batteries,” rides on small outrigger wheels, caster wheels and “a large drive wheel,” and is run by an operator “who stands on a platform.”^[11]

The patent says the design is “ideally suited for use in tobacco warehouses,” where “several hundred pounds of tobacco leaves may be loaded on baskets” and the leaves hang over the edges so “the operator cannot see the pickup points.” The patent’s answer is to straddle the basket and swing the tines toward each other, run from a single control button for the hydraulic pump. It also says the truck’s drive and steering mechanisms “may be entirely conventional”; the new part is the pivoting-tine assembly.^[11]

1962–1991: Design as Strategy

Crown’s own awards list starts in 1962, with an American Iron and Steel Institute “Industrial Products & Equipment Design in Steel Citation Award” for a tow tractor and personnel carrier and the W227 pallet truck. In 1963 the W Series pallet truck received a Design Excellence Award from the Industrial Designers Institute.^[4] The directory says Crown had hired “two young industrial designers, David Smith and Deane Richardson,” in the early 1960s, calls the 1963 award Crown’s “first national Design Excellence Award,” and says that by 1994 Crown products “had accumulated 25 major design awards.”^[12]

The list then follows Crown’s product line. It shows the RC Series stand-up counterbalanced truck winning design awards in 1972 and 1973, the SC Series sit-down truck in 1975, the RR Series rider reach truck winning an IDSA Industrial Design Excellence Award in 1980 and the IDSA’s “Design of the Decade” in 1990, the TSP Series very narrow aisle turret truck in 1989 and the FC Series counterbalanced forklift in 1991.^[4] The directory dates some of these differently: for Crown’s narrow-aisle trucks of the 1980s it gives an Industrial Designers Society award in 1981 and the Design of the Decade in 1989. It says the FC line launched in 1990, and it calls Crown’s 1970s side-stance rider truck the industry’s first, which is the directory’s claim.^[12]

Crown’s company page now says its products have earned “more than 100 prominent design awards.”^[1] Its awards page lists 127 entries from 1962 to 2026, a count that also takes in later supply-chain, software and sustainability recognitions. One of them is a 2007 Red Dot “Best of The Best” award for the TSP 6000 turret truck.^[4]

Electric First, Made In-House

The directory says that although engine-powered trucks dominated the industry, “Crown concentrated exclusively on production of electric vehicles” through the 1960s and 1970s, and that it had “emphasized production of electrically-powered materials handlers since the late 1950s.”^[12] Forbes dated it later: “Since the late 1960s, though, its metier has been electric lift trucks.”^[13] The 1965 tobacco-basket truck, with its battery-powered drive and lift motor, is one dated example.^[11]

Crown also makes much of its own hardware. Its company page says Crown “designs and manufactures up to 85 percent of its lift truck components, including key parts like motors, drive units, and electronic modules.”^[1] The directory, citing a 1992 Design News article, says Crown built a factory in New Knoxville, Ohio, to make electric motors, and that the company “avoided the merger and acquisition trend that swept the forklift industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”^[12] Forbes put the in-house share at 85% in 2007 and named the exceptions: Crown was “outsourcing only steel parts and tires.”^[13]

2007–2026: Engines and Independence

The “BMW” phrase comes from Forbes’s 2007 profile. Its headline was “The BMW Of Forklifts,” and the line came from the family: “We’ve always aimed to be the BMW of the lift truck industry,” Jim F. Dicke III, then president, told the magazine. The piece reported that Crown had “turned down several buyout offers” while rivals including Hyster, Yale and Raymond “have sold out,” quoted Dicke III saying “We’ve always had the commitment to stay a private company, to stay family-owned,” and said Crown had passed another maker in sales that year to become “the fifth-largest manufacturer of lift trucks in the world.”^[13] Crown’s September 24, 2024, release on receiving debt ratings from national rating agencies cites “the Company’s strategy to remain independent.”^[3]

Engines came late. Crown’s 2020 release says “Crown launched the series in 2009 as the company’s first internal combustion line of industrial pneumatic and cushion tire forklifts,” the C-5.^[5] Before that, Crown arranged to sell engine-powered trucks it did not build: in January 2008 Forkliftaction News reported that Crown would “distribute Komatsu-built internal combustion forklifts” under “the new Hamech brand.”^[23] At the launch, Forkliftaction News called the C-5 Crown’s “first company-manufactured internal combustion (IC) forklift” and reported that its engine “was jointly developed for the C-5 with John Deere Power Systems.”^[14] By 2020 Crown called the LPG engine “the Crown designed and manufactured industrial LPG engine,” and it added a diesel C-5 with “a 2.5-liter industrial engine designed for Crown by Kohler.”^[5]

On May 1, 2025, Crown marked 80 years. Its release says “the fourth generation of the Dicke family continues to lead Crown” from New Bremen, that Crown has “more than 19,600 employees worldwide,” and that it sells through its own retail locations and independent dealers “in more than 80 countries.”^[2] Its company page lists 25 manufacturing facilities and names James F. Dicke II as chairman and chief executive officer and James F. Dicke III as president.^[1] In Modern Materials Handling’s 2025 ranking of lift truck suppliers, as republished by its sister publication Supply Chain 24/7, Crown is fourth, with $5.29 billion in 2024 lift truck revenue, behind Toyota Industries, KION Group and Jungheinrich.^[16] We did not find a 2026 edition of that ranking.

For a narrow-aisle maker that went the other way, sold in 1997 and part of the Toyota group since 2000, see Raymond Forklift History: The Narrow Aisle. For a European maker that grew through acquisitions, see Linde Forklift History and the KION Group, and for the wider story, Who Invented the Forklift?

Popular Claims, Checked

What This Means When You Buy Tires

Crown’s history explains the mix of tires in a Crown fleet. Its RC 5700 stand-up and FC 5700 sit-down electric counterbalanced trucks list rubber cushion press-on tires, its warehouse trucks run small drive tires and load wheels, and the C-5 brought engine-powered trucks in both cushion and pneumatic versions. Classes of Forklifts and Their Tires explains how truck class and tire type line up. Forbes reported in 2007 that tires were one of the few parts Crown bought in rather than made.^[13] Replacements are matched by size and construction.

Cushion press-on sizes on Crown’s current spec sheets. These sizes are printed on the sheets for the truck families whose history appears above:

The RC 5700 sheet lists the same two sizes on all six models.^[17] The FC 5700 sheet steps the drive tire from 21x7x15 to 21x8x15 between the FC 5745-50 and the FC 5725-55, and lists non-marking and lugged cushion options.^[18] The C-5 cushion sheet steps both drive and steer sizes up at 6,000 lb and lists non-marking smooth or lug rubber tires as an option.^[19]

Warehouse trucks are a different job. The RR 5700 reach-truck sheet lists polyurethane at all three positions (load wheels, caster and drive), with a 13 x 5.5 in. drive tire and an 8 x 4 in. caster; that row prints no bore, so measure the old part.^[20] The PE 4500 rider pallet truck sheet lists a 13 x 4.5 x 8 in. polyurethane drive tire, two 4 x 2.5 in. polyurethane casters and 3.25 x 6.5 in. load wheels.^[21] In FTC catalog notation that drive tire is 13x4 1/2x8; the page lists both rubber and polyurethane press-ons, so match the polyurethane one to Crown’s sheet. The WP 3200 walkie pallet truck sheet lists a solid rubber drive tire, 10 in. in diameter and 4 in. wide on a 6.5 in. hub, and 3.25 x 4.5 in. polyurethane load wheels.^[22] FTC lists 10x4x6 1/2 press-ons; check whether the part on your truck is a press-on tire or a complete wheel before ordering.

A spec sheet shows how a truck left the factory, not what is on it now. Before ordering for a Crown truck:

• Read the data plate for the model and serial number. How to Read a Forklift Data Plate shows where to look.
• Read the size molded on the old tire, or measure it: outside diameter, width and inside diameter. For a load wheel, note the bore and bearing. Forklift Load Wheels & Caster Guide explains how.
• Match the construction as well as the size. Polyurethane vs Rubber Press-On Tires covers the difference.
• Browse Cushion Forklift for rubber cushion press-ons, Polyurethane Press-Ons for poly drive tires and Forklift Load Wheels for wheels by size, bore and bearing. Crown Forklift Tires: Sizes by Model covers more Crown models, including older ones, and the Crown section of Forklift Tire Sizes by Make & Model has more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Trademarks: Crown, C-5, Channel Master, Raymond, Hyster, Yale, Clark, Caterpillar, Toyota, KION, Jungheinrich, Komatsu, Hamech, John Deere, Kohler and all other equipment names and model designations are trademarks of their respective owners. Forklift Tire Company is an independent aftermarket supplier and is not affiliated with, authorized by, sponsored by, or endorsed by any equipment manufacturer. Make and model references are used solely to identify equipment and its history. Tire sizes shown are those printed on Crown’s published spec sheets for the models named; options and later changes can alter what a specific truck needs.