This company was formed by Walter C. Marmon and Arthur W. Herrington to develop all- wheel-drive trucks, initially for military purposes. Production began in March 1931 when the company received an order for 33 T-1 4 x 4 aircraft refueling trucks powered by 6-cylinder Hercules engines. These were followed by a variety of 4 x 4 and 6 x 6 vehicles for the US and Persian armies used as general load carriers, mobile machine shops, wreckers and balloon winch trucks. Reconaissance, scout and armored cars were also made, some with 4-wheel-steering as well as 4wheel-drive.

In 1932 Marmon-Herrington built the first all-wheel-drive truck and trailer combination for oil pipe construction in Iraq. Also in 1932 there was a very special project, a 40-passenger articulated ordered by the Nairn Brothers for the Damascus to Baghdad desert run. The 6 x 6 tractor was powered by a 90 hp 6-cylinder diesel engine and fitted with a sleeper cab. This was coupled to a luxurious tandem-axle coach 66 feet long, the combination weight being 30 tons. Air springs were added to the tractor's front. semi-elliptic springs. This freighter- was still in service during World War II, now operated by the Royal Air Force.

More important than the complete trucks that Marmon-Herrington built was their work on the conversion of light vehicles to 4-wheel-drive. They began with a 1936 Ford V8 'h-ton open cab pick-up which was supplied in some numbers to the US and Belgian armies, and followed this with a variety of Ford conversions, 6 x 6 as well as 4 x 4, for use as military squad cars, fire trucks, mortar carriers, machine gun trucks, earth boring machines, ambulances, bomb carriers and others. Cabs were either full-enclosed originals or completely open without doors or even a windshield. Civilian conversions were also made on Ford V-8 cars and trucks, and sold with the Marmon-Herrington nameplate. In 1937 a 'h-ton Ford was completely reworked with semi- forward control and a canvas-top cab for use as a US Army ambulance. Another important development was the conversion of a Ford 1 Ѕ -tonner into a half-track with powered front axle, the first time this layout had been seen. Most of Marmon-Herrington's conversions were on Fords, but some , Chevrolet, GMC and International trucks received the treatment, all carrying M-H nameplates. Civilian production was always less important than military, but a range of Ford- and Hercules-powered trucks were offered during the 1930s, in sizes from 1 Ѕ to 20 tons. A number of these were used in road-building projects. During World War II Marmon-- Herrington built 4 x 4 cabovers to Autocar design, and 4 x 2 short slope-nosed tractors to International design, as well as 8-wheeled armored cars, half-tracks and snowplows.

In 1945 Marmon-Herrington branched out into two completely new fields, those of multi-stop delivery , and passenger vehicles. The vans had forward control and front-wheel-drive, and were known as Delivr-Alls. They were made in two wheelbase lengths, and the engine was removable as a unit together with the front frame section, drive train and steering wheel. The Delivr-All was in production from late 1945 to 1952. production began when Charles O. Guernsey, midwest sales manager of ACF-Brill, persuaded Marmon-Herrington that there was a substantial market for lightweight which Brill were no longer producing. About 1,500 trolleybuses were built by M-H between 1946 and 1955, and virtually every US transit system that operated such vehicles bought some of them. The largest fleet was operated in Chicago, whose transit system purchased 349 in a single order in 1950. In April 1950 M-H got into the lightweight motor bus business by taking over production and sale of the 27- and 31- passenger transit formerly offered by Ford. Both these and the trolleybuses became unprofitable by the mid 1950s, and the company turned to the manufacture of milling machinery, although they continued to make some all-wheel-drive conversions, and in 1959 made a final batch of trolleybuses for Brazil. For 1961 they listed three school bus chassis, powered by Ford V -8 engines, and in the same year they won a contract to re-engine almost 1,000 Greyhound Scenicruisers with Detroit Diesel 8V-71 engines. This was their last major piece of automotive work, and in 1963 Colonel Herrington's 25% of stock was acquired by the Fritzker family of Chicago who later acquired most of the rest, and converted the company into a private holding company for a diverse group of enterprises. These included the all-wheel-drive conversions on a variety of chassis, but the highway tractor which M-H was working on was sold to their Southwest distributor who put it into production under the name Marmon. In 1973 Marmon- Herrington's Knoxville, plant built a single one-man cab Ford-powered 4 x 4 construction truck. http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/m/marmon_herrington/marmon_herrington.htm