Inside the 10 Biggest Bulldozers Ever Built_ From HD-41 to the Italian Giant

Under a highway bridge sits a dozer heavier than two Caterpillar D10s combined. 183 tons, two engines, 1350 horsepower. It was built for a massive job and never worked a single day. What stopped it wasn't a breakdown. But first, nine super dozers that did the work. A Soviet monster only about 10 were ever built. And a Japanese giant so big it has to be shipped in pieces. If machines working on another level are your thing, hit subscribe to Xtop World. Quick guess before we start. Which country built number one? Drop it in the comments. Number 10. Chicago, 1963. At a big machinery show, Alice Chalmers rolls out something nobody had seen before. The HD-41. The biggest dozer in the world at the time. But buyers had to wait. Full production didn't start until 1970. Under the hood, a twin-turbo Cummins V12, making 524 horsepower. Fully equipped with blade and ripper, it weighed around 70 tons. Take off the blade and the ripper, and the bare machine still weighed over 46 tons. It was the first of a new breed, the Superdozer. Big mines and quarries suddenly realized one machine could do the work of several. Later, Fiat bought the company, and the giant became the Fiat Alice 41B. It stayed in production until 1982. A few still run today at shows, a cold start, a cloud of black smoke, and that V12 roars like time never moved on. Number 9. Fast forward to 2016, the Bauma trade show in Munich. Liebherr unveils the PR776 and calls it the world's largest hydrostatic dozer. So what does hydrostatic mean? No gearbox, the engine drives hydraulic pumps and pressurized oil turns the tracks. A normal dozer has to shift gears and every shift costs it a moment of pushing power. Not this one. It goes from zero to top speed without a single jolt, pushing at full force the whole time. It weighs about 73 tons, the V12 puts out around 768 horsepower, the blade holds up to 22 cubic meters, and it can travel at about 10 kilometers an hour. The first one sold in Australia arrived by ship in Melbourne, then traveled on to Adelaide to be fitted with all the safety gear an Australian mine demands. If you're into steel beasts like this, hit subscribe and turn on the bell. We're just getting warmed up. Number 8. Back to September 1977. The first production Caterpillar D10 rolls out of the factory, with a shape no dozer had ever had, a triangle. Until then, the sprocket that drives the track sat down low, in the mud and the rocks, taking every hit. On the D10, Caterpillar moved it up above the track. Shocks from the ground no longer hit the drivetrain directly. The machine lasted longer and the operator got a smoother ride. It didn't happen overnight. The first test D10s were built in 1973, four years before the production model. It weighed around 86 tons, with a huge twin-turbo V12 from the same family that powered Caterpillar's big mining trucks. Remember that number? 86 tons. By the end of this video, it's going to look small. That raised sprocket became Caterpillar's signature. If you've ever seen a yellow dozer with triangle-shaped tracks, it all started right here. And from that day on, the race for the biggest dozer on earth never stopped. Number 7. Now we swap tracks for tires. This is the Komatsu WD900-3, a wheel dozer weighing around 100 tons. Why wheels? Because in a giant mine, speed is power too. This machine drives itself from one job to the next. Its 12-cylinder engine makes about 850 horsepower, and its blade, over 6 meters wide, moves around 26 cubic meters. Its job? Keeping the haul roads clean for the mining trucks. Every rock it clears is a giant tire that doesn't get cut. Number 6. Its biggest rival wears yellow. The Caterpillar 854K. The largest wheel dozer cat makes. Nearly 100 tons, around 800 horsepower, and a blade that, depending on the version, moves between 25 and almost 45 cubic meters. Check out the scale. The operator climbs a staircase to reach the cab, like walking into a house, and moving it by road takes special trailers. In the mine, it works alongside some of the biggest trucks in the world, pushing, leveling, and clearing the way. And here's the secret. Wheel dozers are matched to the size of the trucks they serve. The faster it clears the loading area, the sooner the next truck pulls in. One minute saved on every truck over a whole year adds up to serious money. Wheels vs. Wheels. Komatsu vs. Caterpillar. Which one are you picking? Tell me in the comments. Number 5. The Soviet Union wasn't going to sit this one out. In 1983, the Chelyabinsk tractor plant finished its first T-800, the biggest dozer ever built in Europe. Over 100 tons with its blade and ripper, and that gear alone weighed about 30 tons. A diesel engine of around 820 horsepower. And brutal pulling power, 75 tons in normal work, up to 140 at its peak. At the factory, they used it to drag giant steel parts across the yard, like cardboard boxes. But it was a rarity. Only around 10 were built, according to most sources, for the mines and megaprojects of the Soviet era. Russian reports say some worked in the diamond mines of Yakutia, deep in Siberia. Only a handful still run today. An almost forgotten giant that still leaves everyone speechless. Number 4. Japan. The Komatsu D475A-8 is one of the heavy hitters of modern mining. Over 100 tons and around 890 horsepower, a mining dozer lives in a loop. Push, reverse, push again. Every second saved on the way back adds up over thousands of passes a year. That's why Komatsu gives it more power in reverse, to get back to the start fast. Out back, it carries a ripper that breaks very hard ground without explosives, cracking it into blocks the blade then pushes away, and when that ripper bites into rock, a system automatically adjusts engine power so the tracks don't slip. In Scotland, one was billed as the biggest dozer in Europe. In Estonia, it digs oil shale to make electricity, and in New Zealand, others rip gold-bearing gravel with three shanks at once. Over a hundred tons working day and night, and we haven't even reached the podium. Number 3. Caterpillar's King. In 1986, the D-11 replaced the D-10 with longer tracks and a bigger blade. And it hasn't stopped growing since. The first D-11N had 770 horsepower. Then came the D-11R and the D-11T. The carry-dozer version of the D11T weighs about 113 tons. Its engine delivers 850 net horsepower, almost 940 gross. And look at that blade. It's curved like a giant spoon. It doesn't just push the material, it carries it. Around 44 cubic meters per pass. That's why, in coal mines and huge earth-moving jobs, the D11 is almost a symbol. And when they bring one out for a show, it rolls right over a car like it's made of paper. Number 2. The biggest dozer ever put into series production, the Komatsu D575A3 Superdozer. 152 tons, a 12-cylinder engine with 1,150 horsepower, and a blade more than 7 meters wide and over 3.5 meters tall, twice the height of a person. With the standard blade, it moves about 69 cubic meters in a single pass, with the optional blade up to about 96. It's so big it can only be moved in pieces. And it was born for a different job, breaking rock. Its first version, the Super Ripper, went into production in 1991. At a coal mine in New Zealand, some were even run by remote control, so nobody had to be inside if the ground gave way. It's the biggest dozer that ever really worked, but it's not the biggest one ever built. Before number one, what country did you guess? You're about to find out. Number 1. Porto Gruaro, a small town near Venice, in northern Italy. In the early 80s, Umberto Acco's construction company gets an order from Libya, and he makes a crazy call. Instead of buying the biggest dozers on the market, he builds an even bigger one. Remember the D10 and its 86 tons? The Acco weighs 183. More than two D10s put together. It's over 12 meters long. The size of a city bus. The blade is 7 meters wide. Almost two highway lanes. Not even Caterpillar has ever built a blade like that. And it doesn't have one engine. It has two. 1350 horsepower combined. 500 more than a modern D11. But power alone isn't enough. Without weight, tracks just spin. So those 183 tons aren't a flaw. They're the secret. And here's a surprise. According to some spec sheets, that giant blade held about 25 cubic meters, less than a D11's U-blade. Why? Because a straight blade lets dirt spill out the sides. The Acco didn't have extra volume. It had extra force. Next to it waited a sibling, a giant grader of around 200 tons. Everything was ready. But in 1986, the United States imposed a trade embargo on Libya, and the giant never left Italy. It wasn't stopped by a breakdown, it was stopped by politics. It stayed in the workshop where it was born. It never worked on a job site. Not a single day. Then Umberto Acco passed away. And not long after, his son. The company disappeared and the workshops filled up with abandoned machines. The two giants were still there. But their fates split. The Grader was cut up for scrap. The Dozer was saved. In 2012, a landscaping company took it in to preserve it. That day, the giant roared back to life and drove itself onto the trailer. Today it rests under a highway bridge, and visitors climb onto its tracks to take photos. 183 tons of steel, still waiting for a job that never came. If it were yours, would you put it to work, or keep it as a monument? Let me know in the comments. And its giant sibling, the Grader? That story deserves a video of its own. 10 Giants. From the first superdozer of the 60s, to 183-ton Colossus that never got to work, Some changed engineering history, others are still waiting for their chance. If you enjoyed the ride, subscribe and hit the bell, and check out the video on screen next. You're going to love it.