First and foremost, I am not an expert on all-things vintage fire trucks. I do know that many of them seemingly end up like this, where they are likely bought for a very low price with big plans to restore them that never materialize. The fire truck seen here – which, I am hazarding a guess is a Hahn-built model – has been parked for at least 15 years, and probably more based on the seller’s seemingly hazy recollection. It did run when it went into its current resting place, but obviously is quite an undertaking now. Still, it seems cheap with an asking price of $3,000 here on Facebook Marketplace, and I’m sure if you’re willing to drag it out, you can buy it for less.
The truck is located in Hillsdale, New York, but likely served the town of Bristol in Connecticut before being retired. Hillsdale is on the New York / Massachusetts line, towards the Berkshires, so bring a winter coat or two if you plan to spend several hours trying to extract this thing. With the price of scrap going up, it could be a good time to harvest the irreplaceable parts and try to make some money harvesting the rest. I know, I shouldn’t be suggesting that on a site like this, but there’s likely a good reason why so many retired fire vehicles end up tangled in the brambles of a rural backyard.
Truth be told, I can’t blame anyone who buys it at the local surplus auction for pennies on the dollar, as the equipment that these trucks come loaded with cost far more than that when new. What I’ve never known is given the likely always-changing requirements for firefighting equipment and the safety of the firefighters, I’m sure much of it is outdated fairly quickly. If my local autocross chapter deems I upgrade my helmet every few years, I’m sure the requirements for fire engines is far more stringent. But when you think of what these trucks cost new to buy – well, it’s incredible to see it reduced to scrap value now.
I always wonder what the end goal of those who buy old fire trucks is. Plans to restore it? Keep it for posterity? Strip it down for scrap? Or, perhaps, there’s never really a plan. If it’s cheap enough and you have the space, you can justify acquiring almost anything. The seller says they don’t have much info on it, so perhaps they acquired the property with the fire truck already there. If any of our readers can confirm the make and model, please feel free to do so in the comments below. Would you rescue a vintage (Hahn?) fire truck like this, or strip it down and sell off the good parts while scuttling the rest?
Its definitely not a mack. Hard to tell with the overgrowth covering it. Also not an American LaFrance or Seagrave. Possibly a Hahn or Oren, both regional east coast builders now gone. Most likely a Detroit Diesel/Allison powertrain with a 1000 gpm pump although there were still some manuals being built in this era which is probably 1970’s. If a small volunteer department, probably low engine hours.
Don’t count on diesel. It could also be a Continental gas engine. Those were very common back then.
Good general discussion Jeff of the world of old fire trucks. I don’t know much them either, but one has to marvel at the cost of these new (hundreds of thousands of dollars), then used for maybe 20-25 years, then retired as obsolete or worn out. At which time ‘someone’ will acquire it with ‘some’ plan for the future, but many seem to end up like this.
We sometimes talk about restoring a not-high-value car being a labor of love; acquiring this fire truck and getting it functional and reasonably good-looking, even for business advertising or parade duty, would surely end up being a labor of love.
It looks like it could be a mid ‘70 to mid ‘80 Hahn from what I can see of the cab and the pump control panel. As for the retirement point, moving fire apparatus from front-line to reserve status and then after another 7-15 years as a reserve unit to sell off, trade in, or scrap is all driven by the insurance industry requirements on apparatus age as it drives the fire insurance rates for the community along the same lines of whether an area has city water and hydrants or has to rely on tankers or drafting from a nearby water source for the water needed to fight the fire.
Like Tom Bell, I think it’s a Hahn.
I’m willing to go with Mr. Bell’s assessment that this is a Hahn or Orem; it looks like a clone of the 1975 Hahn my one FD had but lacks the trademark “HAHN” front grille.
https://spaamfaa.org/resources-encyclopedia-hahn/
Fire truck historians and collectors can be as tenacious as the guys tracking Ferrari or Corvette engine and/or VI numbers. I guarantee you that someone somewhere out there knows when this was acquired new, when it was re-sold or passed down, and when it ended up with this, erm, “owner.” Fire rigs these days, especially ones purchased with any form of government grant, routinely get passed down and transferred from bigger cities or suburbs to smaller towns to volunteer FDs to even reserve with forest agencies or big institutions like mental hospitals. (One former mental asylum maintained both a fire truck and an ambulance; in the 20 years I know they had the truck there were but two fires, and the truck did no work at either; its main purpose was flushing out water mains.) By the time they’re sold off they’re not only antiques but probably well-work (but not always).
Another reason it’s not a Mack: Collectors would have snapped it up by now. One volunteer FD department I saw had an absolute classic 1955 “bulldog” Mack pumper, and when time came to upgrade around 1983 Hahn (not far away) offered $250 in trade-in. Members of the VFD screamed in protest and offered their own bids, and in the end it was put to sealed bid, with the winner being a Mack collector about 40 miles away, for $2,700. I understand it recently sold for $22,500……………. and the chrome bulldog emblem on the hood probably could have brought $300 separately!
I think Agnew State hospital in Santa Clara had a couple of late 50’s Studebaker Mini-pumpers …might have been Dodges….. Saw them when I interviewed for a position which I am glad I did not get ( Kind of depressing place to work , it was ) . I often what happened to them when they closed the place down …..
Gentlemen, thanks for the feedback. I have updated the post to reflect the likelihood of it being a Hahn-built truck.
Ironically, there was a post on Facebook today about a guy with a military-supplied dump truck that he had listed for $5,000 with no takers. Claims he ended up getting more for it as it rolled across the scales at a salvage in Indiana.
Having purchased a smaller 1969 Cabover GM pumper for the princely sum of 1800.00 with 18000 miles it’s difficult to ascertain (w/o prior experience) how freakin’ LOUD the cab is when driving…once you notice all fireman wearing headsets the lightbulb goes off!
That said, I really enjoyed owning it, lights, sirens, and all. Kids thought it was great. However space was needed and it went to a resort in the woods that used it for stand-by purposes, and to appease his insurance company.
There is a hotel down here in Florida that has one. They put seating in the back and give rides around town. It looked perfect year ago, but sitting just off of the beach, it is now rusting through the hood and the chrome. They are great for advertisement of your business.
As I noted above, probably a Detroit Diesel/power train and this would be the most valuable component in this rig if savable. If the block hasn’t frozen over the many upstate NY winters that it’s been in the woods, a diesel can take a lot of abuse and sitting and still live on as a transplant. It’s a little too new for much collector interest and much better rigs for less money are available. Sometimes a department will re-acquire an old rig for restoration and often it’s the members who fund and/or do much of the work (BTDT) but again, probably too new.
Wasn’t it the same firetruck for free. Not.long ago.
Best use I’ve seen for former fire trucks was the guy that converted the back to a brick oven so he could cook pizzas in them. Traveled around the Midwest serving up awesome pizza at county fairs. He would cut up the old fire hose and sell it for koozies too!
Many manufacturers used this Duplex cab and chassis to build custom rigs like this in early seventies. Probably cost new in range of $60 k to $70’s. I worked off a ’76 John Bean Custom very similiar with Detroit 671 in the seventies+.
Some of us will buy a rig like this at the right price just for the fact that it’ll hold a lot of water and when called upon it can assist the local FD with knocking down a brush fire near our homes-keep the pump working, the hoses up to par and your local FD/wildland fire response crew will have a major resource when needed! Cheap insurance..
Hi Nev, you actually hit it on the head. Many older pumper fire trucks are being bought by homeowners in rural areas, as a desperate attempt to save the farm. 2 reasons it’s frowned upon, 1) it makes the real firefighters look like saps, but 2) and more importantly, fires can get out of hand in a hurry, and is best left to the pros. With climate change, I heard there’s more fires to come, so, if I was in that position, I’d probably buy one too.
Howard, I’ve seen that situation too. Wouldn’t the hurdle be keeping it in operational condition? Truck starts and stops, the pumps and switches and such work, the hoses haven’t disintegrated, etc. Unless it was on a farm where maintaining heavy equipment was common, it seems like a good idea which falls apart in the details. If you just want water to be nearby, buy a large plastic tank??
Before you Bring-a-Hook, you might want to Bring-a-Chainsaw. Just saying…
Not to nic-pik, but this is a Fire ENGINE, not a Fire TRUCK. Trucks are classified as ladder apparatus, engines have pumps and hose (like the one pictured).
Sadly this one will likley end up scraped as others pointed out it’s too new to be considered a collectable.
I would hazard a guess, here, that Hahn is the town, and the apparatus is built by Seagrave.
The “use” for these is on a ranch (or farm) to fill water troughs for the stock, so it gets run, including the pump and the valves, at least once a week, year round, to stand by when you have your annual burn of the brush pile, and to be there right away if there is an unplanned fire, whether started by a kid, lightning, old wiring in the barn, or roasting a pig in a fire pit, which got away, until the real fire department gets there – by which in many rural communities is volunteer – so the firefighters have to get to the station and then drive – sometimes many miles – by which time the barn or the house is gone. OR, it gets sold to someone who already has one and needs parts. There are no parts for the pumps on some of these that have been otherwise well maintained – I know of an IH that has never been off an industrial site, and looks like new, but has a failed pump and if this were a mid-60’s IH and the pump worked they would probably buy it.
We called rural fire fighters “basement savers”. They didn’t like that term, but truth is, if you have a fire in a rural area, you may as well bring out the marshmallows and watch it burn.
In the ’80’s, three of us went together and bought a ’47 Dodge (6 cylinder 2 speed rear end, 15,000 original miles with original snow tires) brush fire pumper with faded red paint, inoperative drum brakes, 1,000 gallon water tank equipped with an internal 3 cylinder John Bean pump with good hoses. the older fire engines are simpler and more fun. You do need a place to store it and availability of professionals and equipment to work on it (heavy-duty jacks, truck air wrenches, etc.) One of us had a garage with that equipment and we put the word out that we’d buy lunch on Saturday for any mechanics in town (they all knew each other) that would help us on Saturday morning. We just got out of the way and were “gophers” as we always had 4-5 professionals every Saturday morning. We would take everybody to lunch (with appropriate adult beverages) at a local bar for several Saturday’s in a row. The bottom line was we got the brakes fixed, the pump working and the pain all buffed out, etc. for a total cost (including the cost of the vehicle) of under $1,000. We took the rig to all of the small town summer parades and had a lot of fun. After 2 years, we sold it to a collector for $3,000. Great experience!
Let’s take up a collection to buy the seller some hedge clippers so he can repost some decent pictures.
I lived in a small town I northeast Texas a few years ago, they had a fire truck that was too old to be insured for official use so they placed an add in the local paper explaining the reason for selling it. Apparently, when these vehicles reach a certain age they’re no longer insurable for active duty. This is probably the reason so many go for penny’s on the dollar. A local rancher bought the truck for use on his ranch.
God bless America
My neighbor in the village has an American LaFrance and he takes the kids out in it on Sundays followed by one of the local Police cars for safety. The
kids love it, it’s restored, I don’t have much information but I think it’s a Pumper.
As a collector I know of Fire Engine Clubs in the US, wherein there are folks who are part of the Hobby and collect all kinds of fire fighting equipment. I would bet on the need for a lot of real estate.
My firehouse had a 78 Pirsch that kinda looked like this one. Definitely set up the same way. 318 detroit/allison 4 speed auto. NOISY to say the least. 1500 gpm hale pump. The day they came to haul it off, it took 10 minutes to get started, and it was our go to truck.10 minutes is a lot of burn time…I’m gonna pass…
We just went thru South Dakota on I90 and there was a stretch of interstate where there seemed to be nothing but old firetrucks with a sign incorporated into the truck. Sort of like the old WALL DRUG signs from 40+ years ago, maybe yet today. And that Christie Noem she is not only EASY on the eyes, but she is doing a wonderful job, running and managing S.Dak. beautiful state with nothing but beauty and clean!!!
Rick, those are for the Firehouse Brewing Company in downtown Rapid City. The owner came up with that idea from what I’ve heard from a friend who grew up there.
According to Facebook Marketplace, item located in Plainville, CT
If my memory serves me right, a fire truck (pumper) must be re-certified after 25 years of service per NFPA regulations. The cost of re-certification can run into hundred of thousands of dollars, almost as much as a new truck. At 25 years old, most people invest in a new truck, due to all the new upgrades, and regulations.
You know, Chuck, I’ve long questioned why depts. have to spend $250g’s on a new unit, to sit 98% of the time. While I’m sure there are several advantages to new equipment, with municipalities struggling to stay afloat, wouldn’t an “old” engine douse the flames just as well? I think we have to get past this “everything has to be new” schtick.
Howard, a lot of the requirements for truck condition and maintenance come from the insurance company underwrighters that insure the owners of the fire equipment.
My small combination department has an ’89 Grumman Wolverine as a reserve engine, 12k miles, 1000 gal, Waterous pump, 6 man cab, 1000′ 5″ LDH. Drives like a dream.
I offered to buy it last year, less ladders and LDH, picks, axes, hooks and Halligans for $3000; the village is mulling my offer.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bristol-CT-Engine-4-1975-Duplex-Oren-Pumper-Fire-Apparatus-Slide-/203117462289
Find the above linked pic for Bristols engine 4, a ’75 Duplex-Oren. I’m no expert by any means, but chances are that Engine 6 listed above is its twin, or possibly triplet. Bigger FD’s usually buy multiples of engines, I know that Dover NH did back in the early 70’s when they had a trio of Maxims, Engines 1, 2, and 3.
It would be nice if these old trucks could be converted to brush / rough fire trucks that could help fight huge fires in areas like CA.