The film above is quite interesting, as it shows an gasoline-powered-chain-drive automobile chassis (possibly a Panhard), used as the power plant for a tracked tractor. German captions where used in the film, as it was an advertisement to try to sell the vehicles in Germany. After bit of investigation it was found to be a Hornsby Chain Track Tractor.

An interesting article (below), was found in the British Motor Traction magazine, Feb. 22, 1908, issue, covering what appears to be the same gasoline-powered machine shown in the film. If any readers can identify the chain-drive automobile used to power this machine, please send us a comment.

Hornsby tractors were built at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, England by Richard Hornsby & Sons. It appears that the firm first built steam-powered units, which were then followed by oil-fired machines, one of these units was a Hornsby chain track tractor that was delivered to the British War Office on May 5, 1910. It was later converted to gasoline in 1911.

Hornsby patented the concept in 1904, but little commercial interest followed other than one machine being sold, which ended up in Canada to haul coal. Much of this Hornsby Chain Track Tractor has survived. Several appear to have been sold to the British military, but interest in the machines faded. Hornsby sold the patents to the Holt Manufacturing Company of America in 1911. Holt later merged with C.L. Best and became The Caterpillar Tractor Company. Photo below of a steam-powered machine courtesy of Hornsby Steam Crawler.