Tow Truck Coloring Page: Free Printable PDF Sheet for Kids

Tow Truck: History & Fun Facts

Ernest Holmes and the First Wrecker

Garage owner Ernest Holmes Sr. built the first true tow truck in 1916 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after struggling for eight hours to pull a friend's car out of a creek using ropes, blocks, and manpower alone. His bolted-on crane and winch turned that ordeal into a job one person could finish in minutes, and Holmes went on to sell wreckers nationwide.

Holmes patented his design a few years later, and by the 1920s his company was shipping tow trucks to garages across the country. Many of the boom-and-hook trucks still built today follow the same basic idea he sketched out after that muddy creek rescue.

How the Boom Arm Lifts a Whole Vehicle

Inside the angled boom arm reaching over the truck bed in this picture sits a hydraulic cylinder that multiplies a small amount of pump pressure into thousands of pounds of lifting force at the hook. That leverage lets a truck weighing a few tons safely hoist a car weighing nearly as much as the truck itself, then hold it steady while the chain secures the load for the drive back to a garage.

The hook and chain dangling from the boom in the drawing connect to sturdy points on a stranded vehicle's frame, never to a bumper or plastic panel that could tear loose mid-lift. A driver operating the winch controls how fast the chain reels in, keeping the lift slow and steady rather than jerking the load off the ground.

The Flatbed's Rise and This Truck's Boom-Style Roots

Older wreckers, like the boom-style truck shown on this sheet, drag or lift vehicles using a crane arm mounted behind the cab, a design that has stayed in service for jobs like pulling a car out of a ditch or a flooded lot where a full flatbed cannot easily maneuver. Flatbed tow trucks came along later, tilting an entire bed down to ground level so a damaged car could be winched fully onboard instead of dragged on two wheels.

Garages still keep both styles in their fleets, since a boom truck reaches into tight spaces a flatbed cannot, while a flatbed protects a car with all-wheel drive or serious front-end damage. Choosing the right truck for the job is often the first call a dispatcher makes before a driver even leaves the shop.

The Roof Lights and Grille Guard on Duty

The two round beacon lights mounted on the cab roof in this picture flash amber, the universal color for a slow-moving work vehicle, warning other drivers to steer around a truck stopped on a busy shoulder. Most states require that amber beacon by law any time a tow truck is loading or unloading near traffic.

The heavy horizontal bar bolted across the front bumper, drawn just below the headlights here, is a grille guard that protects the radiator and lights if the truck has to nose up close to a stranded vehicle on a narrow road. Tow operators often work at night or in bad weather, so that combination of visible lighting and reinforced steel keeps both the crew and nearby drivers safer on the job.