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A forklift truck is known by many names such as lift truck, trailer loader, side loader, fork truck and stacker truck. However they are of course all the same thing, just different people and places call them different things.
There purpose is simple to lift and load platelets of goods on to transport vehicles such as lorries and large vans. The modern style forklift was developed back in the 1920s by a number of companies that included a transmission manufacturing companies called Clark and a hoist manufacturing company called Yale and Towne Manufacturing.
However the first emergence of this type of vehicle came about in 1906 by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, the created a simple but efficient battery powered platform truck that could carry the luggage around. In 1917 U. S. Based Company Clark began working on and using powered tractors and powered lift tractors within their factories and in 1919 another U. S based company Yale and Towne Manufacturing joined the lift truck market.
During the 1920s and 30s this vehicle continued to be used and developed in order to meet the demands of those that worked with them. During the Second World War, much as the first, the trucks were relied upon due to lack of labor.
It wasn't until after the war had ended that the real drives and changes to this common warehouse item took place. The demand was simple, the trucks needed to be more manoeuvrable and be able to reach greater heights in order to allow for more efficient storage.
From this point more models were designed and made to meet these demands and in 1956 Toyota released its first forklift the Model LA, but it took another 11 years before the first one was sold to the United States.
Today there are many models available each one designed to cover a specific purpose such as the walkie, order picking truck, electric counterbalance trucks and even automated ones.