This thing will drive on land, snow, ice, water, you name it. And at this very moment Brian is literally oozing all over his Lazy Boy while checking it out. The fact that it says it is ONLY available for local pickup would normally make this a hard one for a lot of folks, but since it’s located in Vermont a mere 3 hours drive from Brian’s house, he can be the proud owner by weeks end. Kerri may not agree, but we think it is genius in every way and would look great in his driveway with big giant BangShift.com decals down the sides. I’ve talked to the boys, and they agree as well. Please mom!
The 1963 Model 1300 Swamp Spryte “Cat” manufactured by Thiokol, was fabricated for emergency fire/rescue response in Massachusetts marsh lands and cranberry bogs. According to the ad it has approximately 1000 hours run time. All original parts included, and the 1963 Ford 230 six cylinder runs mint in front of the Fairlane Fordomatic 2 speed automatic transmission. The body is made completely from aluminum and it has super bitchin cleats on the tracks. On the water it’s top speed is 3 knots, and it says it will hold up 1000 lbs in the water. We don’t know how fast it is on land, but we are pretty sure it’s fast enough to be a riot regardless.
The weirdest thing about this bad boy is the nickname that the previous owner gave it. “Caterpiggle”. Nope, we are not making that up. It was given by said owner to the Ryegate Fire Department for emergency rescue use, and although it is still fully functional, they feel it is too cool to use now and should go to a collector.
Check it out.
Click the link at the bottom of the page to see the full eBay ad with even more photos.
Brian-This would look great next to the wrecker along side the tent you’d be living in!
My Dad and I used to work on the Tiokol’s at some of the N.Y. ski slopes during ski season (because, of course, you never did maintanance during the off season so they’d be READY!). Very fun and cool things to play with, stone axe simple, really, too.
Very clean!!!
As a Ryegate VT Firefighter, I can say I’m sad to see the Caterpiggle go. While we never used it for a lot of backcountry rescues as we thought we might, it’s still the coolest piece of fire department apparatus in the state. It looks like we have a buyer at this point and it will be on it’s way soon. If you are impressed by the pictures above, you should see this thing in person. For that matter, you should take it for a spin…. it’s something to behold.