A few years ago, BangShift made a field trip to the Bare Cove Fire Museum in Hingham MA, which houses a myriad of antique fire-fighting apparatus, ranging from early human powered pumps to trucks just out of service. Arguably the crown jewel of their collection was their coveted 1935 Ahrens-Fox pumper truck, which is as beautiful and rare as fire trucks get. Their claim to fame is the four cylinder pump that sits right up front, with a can’t-miss-it polished pump primer dome that makes the whole truck look like some sort of gigantic hot rod. As a kid, I lived nearby the fire museum, and I watched in awe every time they took that old truck up and down my street. To this day, I have not seen another early Ahrens-Fox truck with that pump anywhere.
That is, until now. Perusing Ebay recently, I spotted that telltale pump primer dome while scrolling through the pages. This example is even older, being a 1920 model. And since it’s older, it’s a little different than the one we got to view up close in a number of different ways. Let’s take a look at this historic truck!
See what I mean? You can’t miss that giant polished dome sitting right up front! That big pump was among the most powerful of its time. An earlier model famously shot a stream of water OVER the Woolworth building in New York City during a product demonstration, which was a major feat for the time. That’s 792 feet!
Design-wise, the truck resembles a regular truck of its day, just plus-sized and with extra length up front for the massive pump. The big six-cylinder gas engine sits between the cab and the pump, although the hood and bodywork is a bit less curvy than it’s later counterpart.
Here’s a closer at that pump. If it’s anything like the pump on the 1935 model, it should be rated for around 1000 gallons per minute. The primer dome wasn’t just for looks, either. This design helped keep the pressure steady; uneven pressure could cause the hose to violently flail around, which could cause serious injuries to fire fighters. While you’re trying to save lives, the last thing you should need is to worry about an errant fire hose bashing you in the face or breaking your arm, and this design helped mitigate that risk.
One other tidbit about that ubiquitous dome: according to the website www.coachbuilt.com, these were one-piece chrome-plated brass domes that were hand-hewn by an Ahrens-Fox employee for years. The guy who made these never taught anyone else his techniques and went to the grave with this knowledge. They later had to replicate these domes as a two-piece design.
Ahrens-Fox built a few different models back then, and this particular truck is a Model JM3. They built these roughly between 1916 and into the early 1920’s, when it was replaced by the JM4.
The condition of this truck isn’t bad per-se, but it’s not quite as nice as the condition of the 1935 model we viewed up close. Some of the chassis components could use a cosmetic refresher.
There’s no rot or anything too serious, but that old paint is falling off after years of probably sitting around. Then again, this thing is about 100 years old, so its very existence is nothing short of remarkable at this point.
Inside the cab, you get a few gauges and switches to monitor vitals, as well as some somewhat-modern controls on the floor for the throttle, brakes, and clutch. Remember, back then, there weren’t standardized foot controls yet like there are today.
This giant wooden wheel would feel just as much at home on a large boat as it does here. The metal could use a polish, but otherwise it’s in great shape for the age.
Under the hood of this ancient truck is a huge inline six cylinder mill Backed by a three speed manual transmission. These engines are loud and clattery, almost sounding like a diesel engine. While we can’t dig up any horsepower ratings, they were good for propelling the rig to a top speed of about 50mph.
Another cool feature of the giant six is that it has built-in ignition redundancy features. It was common back then for plugs to constantly foul out, so Ahrens-Fox designed the engine with two sets of plugs per cylinder to make damn sure that fuel ignited! These trucks were very expensive for their time, and they wanted to make sure fire fighters got to the site of the fire without breaking down on the side of the road. By the time they built the 1935 model we saw in person, they upped it to three plugs per cylinder!
Like most fire trucks, they were built to order for towns and municipalities. This truck was commissioned by former St. Paul, Minnesota mayor Laurence C Hodgson. This truck was ordered during his first term as mayor and delivered on January 12th, 1920. Fun Fact: Hodgson was also a writer; he submitted work in local St. Paul newspapers under the name Larry Ho. He got the name when he was signing his last name on some copy and his pencil broke. His editor told him to leave it like that and ran with it!
This truck, as it sits on Ebay, is a non-running truck that has been in the hands of a collector for a long time. While it doesn’t give a reason for its mechanical downfall, keep in mind that parts availability for these tricks is next to non-existent. When the 1935 model at the Bare Cove Fire Museum’s engine launched one of it’s giant rods out the side of the block, it took them some time to locate a replacement engine. They basically told us it was a miracle that they were able to find another engine block, as these are proprietary designs that were made in-house. These were rare trucks in their day, and nearly 100 years later, you may have to make your own parts! That said, this is a real piece of mechanical and fire-fighting history, and it deserves to be resurrected and displayed proudly in a museum or collection.
If this super rare pumper truck is up your alley, hit up the Ebay auction for additional details!
Here’s a link to the auction: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1920-Other-Makes/123917469749?hash=item1cda0e8835:g:nq0AAOSwvCpdinLN
And of course, feel free to tell us what you think below!
Great to see the photos, as I have an HO scale plastic kit model of it that I assembled many years ago. Could have used these photos as references.
It’s Old Number 5! I had always wondered what Hot Wheels had based it on.