Fire Engines
In 1971, AMT issued models of at least three different pieces of American LaFrance fire-fighting apparatus, including a pumper, a rear-mount aerial ladder truck, and a rear-mount articulating boom truck. The prototypes were selected to maximize the number of shared parts (e.g., almost all of the cab and diesel motor parts), apparently in order to minimize tooling costs. All 3 kits have been reissued by AMT-Ertl in recent years.
Surprisingly, given the company's penchant for licensing various television series, they did not offer models of any of the vehicles (e.g., the Crown Firecoach that was the first Engine 51, the Ward LaFrance P80 Ambassador that was the second Engine 51, or the Dodge rescue squad) from the then-current Emergency! series; neither did the decals supplied with the American LaFrance kits include markings for the Los Angeles County Fire Department (featured in the series). In addition, they also released a Chevrolet fire chief's car and a Chevrolet rescue van, the latter of which could be built in 4 configurations: stock, custom, fire department, or police department.
Read more about this topic: Aluminum Model Toys
Famous quotes containing the words fire and/or engines:
“When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle- field, they have all one rank in my eyes.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
“America is like one of those old-fashioned six-cylinder truck engines that can be missing two sparkplugs and have a broken flywheel and have a crankshaft that’s 5000 millimeters off fitting properly, and two bad ball-bearings, and still runs. We’re in that kind of situation. We can have substantial parts of the population committing suicide, and still run and look fairly good.”
—Thomas McGuane (b. 1939)