20 Fire Truck Makers That Disappeared

20 Fire Truck Makers That Disappeared In January 2014, American LaFrance, the most famous name in fire trucks, announced it would cease operations, 141 years after it started. It was not the first. This is the story of twenty American and Canadian fire apparatus builders that disappeared: who they were, what they built, and what finally finished them. From Thibault in Quebec and Sanford of Syracuse, through Oren of Roanoke, Howe, the Grumman Firecat, the John Bean fog truck, Snorkel, Van Pelt, the Young Crusader, Hahn, the Crown Firecoach, Maxim, Pirsch, Ward LaFrance, Ahrens-Fox and Mack, to American LaFrance itself. Which of these names was on the rig you rode? Tell us the maker, the year, and the department. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:32 #20 The Builder From Quebec 01:13 #19 The Syracuse Builder 01:51 #18 The Chassis From Lansing 02:27 #17 The Oklahoma Builder 03:02 #16 The Bankruptcy That Started A New Name 03:51 #15 The South's Own Builder 04:33 #14 Howe 05:13 #13 The Airplane Company 05:50 #12 The Fog Truck 06:37 #11 The Snorkel Company 07:33 #10 The Dodge Dealer 08:19 #9 The Crusader 08:57 #8 Hahn 09:33 #7 The Firecoach 10:13 #6 Maxim 10:37 #5 Pirsch 11:30 #4 Ward LaFrance 12:31 #3 Ahrens-Fox 13:24 #2 Mack 14:15 #1 American LaFrance FAIR USE This video uses short excerpts of archival, newsreel, amateur and home-movie film and photographs for the purposes of commentary, criticism, education and historical research, with original narration. No original audio from these excerpts is used. We believe this is fair use under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. All rights remain with their respective owners. PHOTO CREDITS (Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons) Acroterion — CC BY-SA 4.0; Corvair Owner — CC BY-SA 2.0; DanTD — CC BY-SA 4.0; Eric Friedebach — CC BY 2.0; Ethan Long — CC BY-SA 2.0; Fjbfour — CC BY 3.0; Goddangit — CC BY-SA 4.0; Greg Gjerdingen — CC BY 2.0 MUSIC "Windswept" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "Parting of the Ways - Part 1" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "With Regards" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... A few scenes without a named truck (factory floors, offices, a 1930s farm fire, an 1870s hand pumper) are original AI-generated illustrations with fictional people; they are not archival photographs or film. No AI-generated scene shows a named truck; the named trucks are shown only in real photographs and film. #firetrucks #firefighters #firehistory Which maker was on the rig you rode? Tell us the name, the year and the department. And which builder did we leave off this list that should have been on it?