What’s the best classic bang for your buck? A fire truck, says Jay Leno, especially when it has a V12
‘So the guy who’s doing the pin-striping shows up with his box of paints and a bottle of whiskey. He takes one swig and does a whole stripe in a single pass. Then he goes around and does the other side. I come back a few hours later and he’s passed out. When he wakes up, he goes home and then he comes back the next day to carry on. But just look at the job he did! It’s incredible!’
You can’t walk past a single vehicle in Jay Leno’s garage without the man himself telling you a story about it – he knows every one intimately – and a bright-red fire engine, beautifully decorated with gold leaf and (perfect) pin-striping, is a natural candidate. As Jay recalls with a grin: ‘I pulled up next to a Ferrari at a stop light, and there was a small boy crossing with his mother, and she pointed out the Ferrari and he went, “Wow, a fire truck!”’
The story of how Jay discovered this 1941 American LaFrance fire truck is pretty remarkable, too. ‘When the truck had outlived its usefulness maybe 30 years ago, it was parked at the end of the runway at Burbank Airport as a kind of windbreak, to stop dirt and trash blowing across the runway. But then 9/11 happened, and you weren’t allowed to have anything near a runway that people could hide behind. I saw it about to be hitched to a tow truck and said, “Where are you going with that thing?” “I’m taking it to the scrapyard.” “I’ll pay you double whatever the scrap value is!” It was nothing, a couple of hundred bucks. And it only had 11,000 miles on it!’
That price seems even more of a bargain when you learn that this ’40s truck is home to a 754ci (12.3-litre) 265bhp V12 petrol engine, which Jay reckons was the most powerful engine made in America at the time. Originally designed as a smaller 391ci unit by Augie Duesenberg for Auburn and built by Lycoming, it’s a narrow-angle, overhead-cam V12 that in appearance could easily be mistaken for a six. The truck was complete with all its fittings, too – normally the first things to disappear – although it was looking very sad, heavily weathered from exposure, and leaning down on one side. ‘It was like a dying Mastodon,’ Jay recalls.
This particular truck was bought new by Warner Brothers for use on its studio lot, and then passed to the City of Burbank before it in turn donated it to the airport. Jay reckons it might well appear in the background of old Warner Bros movies. As he discovered while researching his new purchase, the 1941 American LaFrance was quite a significant truck in its day. ‘It was the first fire engine to be tested in a wind tunnel,’ he says, ‘with all the hoses and ladders and so on concealed on the inside. The Empire State Building and all these skyscrapers going up meant that American LaFrance marketed the V12 on the basis that something extremely powerful was needed to pump water, but they kind of shot themselves in the foot because it was so expensive to produce that most municipalities couldn’t afford it and would just buy a six-cylinder diesel instead.’
American LaFrance had a convoluted history. It was one of the USA’s oldest vehicle producers, dating back to 1873, when a certain Truxton Slocum LaFrance and his partners founded the LaFrance Manufacturing Company in New York to make firefighting equipment. In 1900, it amalgamated with several rival businesses to form the International Fire Engine Company, which in turn was renamed American LaFrance in 1903. Jay’s truck, incidentally, is badged ‘American LaFrance Foamite,’ following ALF’s takeover of another company in 1927 that made a special firefighting chemical called Foamite.
It’s the most practical vehicle I own – and you can use it as a party bus, too
ALF dominated the US emergency vehicle market for much of the 20th Century and was a pioneer of the cab-forward fire truck design with its 1947 700-series. Octane readers who had particularly indulgent parents may remember receiving for Christmas or a birthday the impressive 1968 Corgi Major toy of ALF’s articulated aerial rescue truck, with a turntable ladder that pivoted from the tractor unit as it drove around corners. ALF’s career from the mid-1980s onwards was particularly turbulent, and it filed for bankruptcy in 2008, citing problems with a new computer system – sounds familiar? – before limping on until 2014, when its remaining assets were finally auctioned off.
Today, the LaFrance name is usually associated in the classic car world with grotesquely oversized replica speedsters, the kind favoured by Paris-Peking wannabes, which trade on the massive engines, huge ladder-frame chassis, square-spoke wooden wheels, and dramatic external chain drive of ALF’s early fire trucks. While it’s true that ALF itself built a handful of cars in period, these were much less lorry-like than the faux speedsters, having shaft drive and lighter chassis and wheels.
Of course, the reason why it’s cost-effective to convert old ALF fire truck chassis into ‘vintage’ speedsters is that there’s a limit to what you can actually do with an old fire engine, other than impressing small boys at pedestrian crossings. Which is why Jay’s 1941 truck has been sensitively converted into a motorcycle transporter, with an electric tail-lift that folds out. From the outside, it looks totally stock, but the back of the truck has been stripped of its water tank – ‘it weighed about a ton and a half,’ says Jay – and floored with chequer plate, while there are padded bench seats running along each side, fire hoses forming the backrests. ‘It’s the most practical vehicle I own!’ Jay exclaims. ‘If we take it out and see a motorcyclist stuck at the side of the road, we’ll put the bike on and give them a ride home. It’s a real thrill. And with those bench seats, you can use it as a party bus, too!’
The fire truck has another couple of clever mods. One is conventional enough: an electric overdrive unit made by well-known specialist Gear Vendors. The other is less familiar and more radical. The LaFrance has drum brakes all round, which can struggle to rein in a vehicle of this size and mass. So, halfway along the propshaft, Jay has installed a Telma electromagnetic retarder. A what? Essentially, this compact device uses electrically generated magnetic fields to brake the drivetrain and is controlled by a variable-position selector on the steering column that gradually increases braking from zero to full retardation in 25% increments. So, for example, if the truck’s going downhill and you want to maintain a steady 45mph, you move the selector to, say, position two and you don’t need to touch the foot brake at all. This also massively extends the life of the drum-brake linings.
Climb up into the fire truck’s cab, and it’s reminiscent of a World War Two DUKW ‘Duck’ amphibious vehicle in that you’re sitting in something very large, very tall, and with a similar sharply raked flat screen and swept-down side windows. It’s a very open driving position, presumably to aid the crew in positioning their truck below burning buildings, which makes you feel as though you’re commanding an armoured vehicle – no one is going to mess with this truck!
There’s a massive four-spoke steering wheel and a simple bare-alloy dashboard, housing a speedo, multi-sector dial for oil, water, amps, and fuel, and a rev-counter that reads up to 3500rpm. The latter features a duplicate mileometer that’s labelled ‘motor miles,’ which records the mileage equivalent covered by the V12 when it’s driving the hose pump – like the ‘motor hours’ featured on aircraft instruments – so that servicing intervals can be monitored. A small circular casting on the floor, marked ‘Pump Drive Down – Road Drive Up,’ contains a hole for a push-pull selector, but that’s been discarded because, of course, the truck can no longer pump water.
I’m pretty relieved that Jay’s at the wheel as we head out of his garage to our photo location because it’s clear that driving the LaFrance takes a lot of concentration and a fair bit of effort. No power steering, of course, and the synchro-free gearchange is on the crunchy side, even for someone of Jay’s vast experience. It’s a four-speed ’box, plus the modern overdrive, and Jay reckons he’s had the truck up to 80mph on the freeway. Sooner him than me.
There may be a petrol V12 up front, but the aural experience is ‘full truck’ – no thoroughbred snarls or screams here, just the usual cacophony of gear whine, tyre noise, and wind rush mostly obscuring the mutter of the massive engine. Parts for this unit are very hard to find now, so it was a relief for Jay and his shop chief Bernard to find out that, when they first checked the engine over on acquiring the abandoned truck, it was in perfect shape apart from some oil sludge in the sump. ‘We put fresh oil and gas in it, and it fired right up,’ says Jay. ‘These things were built to aircraft standards of quality, with four distributors and a huge radiator so they could idle for long periods. We haven’t had to put an auxiliary fan on it, and it never runs hot.’
While manoeuvring this huge vehicle around corners and making sure it stops in time at junctions can be nerve-wracking, its bright red paint and massive bull-nosed grille mean that other drivers can’t fail to notice it. But, should you find yourself getting frustrated by LA traffic, just step on a button to activate the siren, which is housed in a chromed pod atop the bonnet and fronted by a big red light. It makes that classic 1950s lazy, nasal rise-and-fall wail familiar from a hundred B-movies, which still stirs subconscious memories in Angelenos and parts lesser vehicles like Moses in the Red Sea.
Aside from its slab windscreen, this 1940s truck has a remarkably futuristic feel to it, its high beltline terminating in projecting hose couplings that could almost be jet nozzles, while its huge wheels and long, lofty bonnet give the impression of a ’40s child’s diecast toy scaled up to an impossible size. And that’s appropriate because, intimidating both to drive and to look at, it’s one of those mammoth pieces of machinery that appeals to the little boy in all of us – whether that little boy is grown up and behind the wheel or gazing in wonder from a pedestrian crossing. As Jay knows, if you want to hose down a Ferrari, a fire truck is what you need.
