Danville Street Sighting - 1938 Dodge Brothers Fire Truck

May 4th is International Firefighters Day. I felt this was a good time to feature this classic Dodge fire truck in honor of the day and the men and women who serve.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1962 Magirus-Deutz Mercur 125A Fire Pumper

Over the last few years I've noticed a mysterious influx of German fire trucks in San Francisco. One was a Mercedes-Benz 508D which last I checked was owned by Make Magazine. Someone found an old Opel fire truck in the Sunset District and now we look at this 1962 Magirus-Deutz Mercur 125A fire pumper which hails from the same general area.

Malibu Street Sighting - 1956 Seagrave 70th Anniversary Series 1000-300 Fire Truck

It's not every day you see a car or truck with a name that's as long as the vehicle. But Seagrave Fire Apparatus didn't mess around when they came up with the name for this fire truck. Seagrave has been around for a long time, since 1881. In 1951 they celebrated their 70th year in the business with the 70th Anniversary Series. Apparently they were like Disneyland and never let a big anniversary go to waste, so the series continued in production for some 19 years. Seagrave prided itself on being the 'greatest name in fire apparatus' - and it says so on the side. As far as I can tell, power for a truck like this came from a gasoline V12 engine producing 300 horses, with a 4-speed manual transmission.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1941 White Super Power Fire Truck

Someone somewhere had to recognize the irony of a car company building a vehicle called the White Super Power at a time when Hitler's Nazis were steamrolling over Europe. This fact was not lost on other manufacturers such as Studebaker, who dropped the name Dictator from their lineup in 1937. The Studebaker Dictator had been so named because it 'dictated the standard' for its competitors. But by that year the word 'dictator' was not fashionable. Likewise, White Super Power refers to the White Motor Company flathead six-cylinder engine under the hood, not to any racist tendencies or support of Hitler on the part of the manufacturers.