ATC - Terratrac merger?

I've seen pictures of the Terratracs that were manufactured before the merge and noticed that the Terratracs had the "bug-eye" headlights in the upper part of the nose that seemed to be the CASE corporate design (like in the 530's through the 930's for example)on all the tractors through the 1960's.

Does anyone have the background? Did CASE acquire ATC or was there actually a merger? What influence did ATC/Terratrac have in CASE?

I noticed that the Terratrac dozers continued to be the same after joining ranks, except they exchanged the Continental engines for CASE manufactured engines, they were painted Flambeau Red/Dessert Sand, and used CASE logos, but they basically stayed the same as before.

I've not seem much of this history published. I've read some of the history of CASE going back to the steam engines, but not on this ATC (American Tractor Company?) or Terratrac.

Anybody have any information on this. Is it available somewhere on the web?

Ken McWilliams
Dayton, OH

ATC was founded in 1948 as the Washington Tractor & Farm Equipment Corp. Marc Rojtman bought the American Tractor Corporation in 1950. Case acquired the ATC in 1957 and Rotjman wanted to be president of Case as part of the deal, but was relegated to the post of executive vice president. In April 1958 he was promoted to president. He fell out of favor with the board and tendered his "resignation" which (surprising to him) the board readily accepted, and he was succeeded by William Grede on Feb. 1, 1960.

The early Terratracs did not have the headlights in hood styling, but rather two headlights atop the hood. The color was yellow. And even in 1960 the only one that had the red/desert sand color scheme was the smallest model (and it still retained the two headlights atop the grille). The other three larger models that year were all yellow and they had the headlights "inside" the top of the grille w/ mesh-type grilles. The whole story is described in the chapter titled "Peaks and Valleys: 1957-1961" on page 93 of this book.

Hope this helps

Zeus