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Articles
Cummins - A Global Power Leader
7 min read

Clessie Cummins (second from right) with his test truck in 1931 before starting a non-stop 14,600-mile endurance run at Indy Speedway. The truck used $17.54 worth of diesel fuel. The truck also made a celebrated cross-country run in late 1931, travelling 3,214 miles on $11.22 worth of furnace oil.

The rise of Cummins – 100 years old in February 2019 – from a tiny machine shop in Columbus, Indiana (USA), to a global power leader offering a broad portfolio of products, is a story rich in drama, a story of trials and triumphs.

Cummins Engine Co. was founded on Feb. 3, 1919, with William G. Irwin, a banker, supplying the starting capital. Irwin had hired Clessie Cummins in 1908 to drive and maintain his car and later set him up in business as an auto mechanic. 

Cummins, a self-taught mechanical genius, was convinced that the engine tec

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