Barn Finder Ikey H has been keeping an eye out, and he has spotted this classic old Dodge Fire Truck for us, so thank you for that Ikey. This is an interesting old vehicle, and you will find it listed for sale here on Craigslist. It is located in Paso Robles, California, and the title is listed as missing. The owner has set a price of $4,500 OBO for this old girl.
I feel like I’m becoming a bit of a Barn Finds specialist on fire-fighting appliances, and some of them are easier to investigate and write about than others. This one has taken a bit of detective work because the seller wasn’t sure about the year. What I can confirm is that this Dodge was manufactured somewhere between 1940 and 1947. The T-Series was introduced by Dodge in 1939, and in 1940 the manufacturer introduced sealed beam headlights, and mounted the side markers on the headlamp housing, as you see here. The styling then remained basically unchanged until 1947. I think that this one is a 1940 V-Series, but it is hard to tell whether it is a VF-30 or a VF-31, so hopefully one of our Barn Finders can set the record straight. Regardless of which it is, it does appear to be in very nice condition. The owner states that the paint is in great shape. I generally agree on this, but I don’t believe that it is original. You would normally see some evidence of where the appropriate sign-writing and identification has previously been on the truck unless it was used for private purposes. It also looks like both headlight housings are damaged, but these should not be hard to repair. The vast majority of the fire-fighting equipment like the tank and pump have been removed, but you can see evidence of where these were.
The interior is typical of open-cab fire-fighting appliances in that it is very basic and hard-wearing. The seat upholstery looks to be in good condition, and the rest of the interior consists of painted surfaces that also look good. I think that the turn signal switch has come loose and has worked its way down the steering column, so that will need to be fixed. Otherwise, the interior is serviceable as it is.
Unless powered by a diesel, all Dodge T, V, and W-Series trucks were powered by an inline 6-cylinder flat-head engine. This one should be the 217.7ci version, which is hooked to a manual transmission, which could either be a 3-speed or 4-speed, but the seller doesn’t tell us which. He does tell us that it runs well.
I’m honestly not sure what you would do with this Dodge. Restoring it to its original specifications would be close to impossible unless you could track the lineage of it. Fire-fighting appliances from this period tended to vary, depending on which company performed the specialist role of supplying and fitting the equipment. The owner does suggest that it would be a great vehicle for rides and parades, but even there its use would be limited. Any ideas out there?
Enough already…..this is not a toaster…. this is not an appliance…this my friends is pure Vintage Iron…..pure Vintage APPARATUS and for those of us that know what today is….242 years of Semper fi…..and to those that continued into the fire service…Semper Fire….
And I expect the author of this post to drop and give the CHIEF…20 push ups…….😉🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 Carry on and Keep em coming
PS… I drive this exact truck every year in our annual parade….love the history….#vintage fire fighter. #vintage fire apparatus
….
A perfect polar-opposite to our ’47 Rattley Rod.
It’s time for the “appliance” boys to hang hoses from the tower…. by themselves… or, is it SCUBA apparatus or appliance? Take a stove with you next time you dive The Great Barrier Reef.
Great stuff..love the vintage fire equipment
I’ve been toying with the idea of buying one of the small brush trucks that pop up occasionally on BF. Where I live in the mountains of California, as you can see from the news in LA and northwards, a personal brush truck would be very useful.
When I was a little kid my neighbor, a well known radio commercial announcer, had a vintage fire truck and somewhere I have a Polaroid of me sitting in the open cab with him. I have to find that and throw it up here one day.
I hate to burst your bubble, Dan, but have you ever heard of the products of the Buffalo Fire Appliance Corp. Of Buffalo, NY……made apparatus from the 20s to the late 40s……..
Give the “truck cab” guy in Minnesota a call, and make it into a regular truck. Who’s stupid now? ( the cab guy is thinking)
Without a title it might as well be a toaster. Love the body sculpture of this vintage and the beautiful grill to fender relationship.
Most old fire engines sell for so little money it’s hard to justify the asking price, especially with the missing title, which I’m sure will include hefty back fees. Even though old fire trucks are cool, a quick look at actual selling prices on eBay should sour anyone from considering almost any vintage truck that isn’t pristine.
Steve R
The ad does not list the mileage on it, but if it like the majority of fire dept vehicles we see here, it has to pretty low for its age. Race to the fire close by, then back to the station and spit shined. Gotta love ’em.
What? You operate the turn signals with you knees?
Actually, you’re going to be in tremendous gonadical misery should you hit the brakes too hard and aren’t wearing a seat belt – but perhaps that’s OK if you always wanted to sing tenor anyway!
the ’39 and ’40 have a V shaped stainless grille trim. Later years are different. So the ’40 estimate is likely right. Nice rig
From the looks of this, Chrysler originally built this vehicle as a chassis/cowl combination without it ever having a full cab. To positively identify the truck with regard to its model year, you’d need to know the serial number. I have no idea where the serial number plate would be mounted on a chassis cowl – probably on the firewall, but there’s no guarantee. While the seller indicates the truck’s water tank has been removed and the back is now just for carrying hose, it does look like the original pump is still there. Removing it would require refabbing a driveshaft among other things to make it a runable vehicle.
There nice to look at but other wise useless. That the problem with perpose built equipment. I my self would take the cowling and all body parts ahead of that I’d find a cab then I’d mount the whole thing on a newer chassie with a short wheel base that a truck box would fit to. I’d put in a cumins diesel backed by a 5 speed stick. It would be kind of cool to have a 5 ton pickup truck.
Shoot. Thought that was the extraordinarily rare ambidextrous reach-down turn signal option. The front end on that truck is what is known as rolling sculpture. Very cool! We camped a few times in the Poconos at Otter Lake & they at the time had a REO configured similarly to this one which they would run through the campground picking up & dropping off campers. The last time we were there was 16 or 17 years ago… wonder if they still have it or if the no fun posse has finished that off too.
Mobile BBQ in back. Wouldn’t even have to change anything permanently
My buddy has a diesel dump truck maybe 25 years old that the DMV will not let back on the road without a $15K upgrade, I think we should swap cabs and tell the Gov that it’s an antique…
Pleas email me close-up photos of the various plates that I can see on the firewall. One probably tells you who made the fire apparatus portion. Another probably has a Dodge chassis number. Look on the motor, too, there is probably a small plate with a Dodge motor number on it.
Since this fire engine is in California, there is a good chance the fire engine portion was built by P.E. Van Pelt Fire Trucks, Inc., of Oakdale, CA. Van Pelt built 3,197 fire engines between 1923 and 1987. A great many of those were on Dodge chassis, because besides building fire engines, Van Pelt owned Dodge dealerships in Oakdale, Modesto, and Napa.
I am the duly elected Secretary of the 1300-member P.E. Van Pelt Fire Apparatus Preservation Society (PEVPFAPS). We have an archives of copies of all of the Van Pelt fire engine factory records. So if this is, indeed, a Van Pelt, we could tell you the complete history of this fire engine from the Van Pelt serial number, OR the Dodge chassis number, OR the Dodge motor number – we can look it up by any ONE of those there numbers . Even if this is NOT a Van Pelt fire engine, we could tell you the year from the Dodge chassis number. If this is NOT a Van Pelt, members of the American Truck Historical Society (ATHS) and the Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America (SPAAMFAA) can probably tell you a lot about this fire engine.
Old fire engines are hand-crafted custom-made works of art. Trying to “improve” an old fire engine by rat-rodding or conversion to a commercial truck is akin to turning a 5-year-old loose with finger paints and instructing the child to “improve” the original of the Mona Lisa. No, restoring an old fire engine is not an impossible task; thousands of us have restored old fire engines; I restored three of my own over the years, and assisted in dozens of other fire engine restorations.