A retired New Kensington fire truck was expected to leave the city before sunrise Saturday, beginning the first leg of a journey to its new home in Florida.
Steve Vinson, 73, a retired pharmacist, bought the 1980 American LaFrance through an online auction with a bid of $6,800. He flew to Pittsburgh on Thursday and planned to leave New Kensington behind the wheel of the engine around 3 a.m. Saturday.
“It is an absolute honor to be bestowed ownership of this truck. I can’t thank New Kensington enough for the opportunity of being able to preserve it and maintain it,” he said. “I hope I can do them justice.”
The truck will become the sixth in Vinson’s collection, which began in the early 1980s with a 1954 International Harvester rural pumper. Over years, he also has acquired a 1971 American LaFrance, a 1978 Ford 700 tanker, a 1981 American LaFrance and a 1989 Spartan/FMC.
A native of Zebulon, N.C., Vinson was a volunteer firefighter for three years and medic for 27 years. He moved to DeLand, Fla., between Daytona Beach and Orlando, five years ago after inheriting property from his parents. His son, Tommy Vinson, is a professional firefighter in Cary, N.C.
The New Kensington truck is his most expensive acquisition to date, and the first he purchased from an auction site.
“People ask me: Why do you do this?” he said. “I hate to see these vehicles that have given so much for so long to their communities go to a scrapyard and wind up being cannibalized just for a motor to go into a dump truck.”
It first served the Bronx
The truck was listed on the auction site Municibid three times before the highest bid met New Kensington’s minimum price, fire Chief Ed Saliba Jr. said.
Originally ordered and delivered to New York City in 1980, the American LaFrance Century served Engine Company 61 in the Bronx from January 1981 to May 1989. In 1992, it was bought by Pennsylvania Fire Apparatus, extensively refurbished and sold to the Biglerville Truck & Hose Co. No. 6 in Adams County, Pa.
Saliba remembered driving the truck to New Kensington in January 2012, when he was a first assistant chief. It began use in New Kensington as a reserve engine and then became a frontline engine before going back to reserve status and then finally a spare. Over the years, it has been loaned out to other communities, including Arnold and Lower Burrell.
Despite its history, Saliba said, there were no sentimental attachments to the truck.
“It was just a spare rig that, in case we ever needed it, it was there,” he said. “We already had a reserve engine and each station has an engine. It was just sitting there. We haven’t used it. It was time to sell it.”
The American LaFrance was parked at the fire department’s No. 3 station beside a 1991 Mack, a reserve engine the city is keeping.
“The nice thing about these are there’s no computers, no electronics, no pollution controls. Everything operationalwise is mechanical,” Saliba said. “Mechanics love working on this stuff.”
Expensive hobby
Collectors of fire trucks all have their favorites, said Tim “Cosgrove” Jones, of Rockville, Md., president of the Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America. An educational organization dedicated to the preservation, restoration and operation of fire trucks, it has 50 local chapters and about 2,400 members worldwide.
Not all of the association’s members own trucks, and it’s not required. Jones has one, a Seagrave, that he’s had for 30 years that came from Carlisle.
“You gotta have a desire to be able to work on this stuff yourself. Not many shops do it. Finding parts can be a real problem. The internet has made it a little bit easier,” he said. “It’s a hobby. You just get into it.”
It isn’t a cheap one.
“The amount of money I spent to rebuild the motor in my fire truck — don’t ever let my wife find out,” Jones quipped.
“We’re preserving history for future generations. The problem is, like every other hobby, we’re all getting gray hairs. The younger generation is not getting into it.”
Vinson is a member of the society and of the Florida Antique Bucket Brigade. His love of fire trucks has always been for American LaFrance, of which he now has three. The company ceased operations in 2014.
“It’s always been a very nostalgic American fire truck that seems to have captured the interest and the love of everybody that’s been in the fire service. American LaFrance has always been the epitome of fire service, in my eye,” he said.
Featured Local Businesses
“That rounded nose on it is iconic for American LaFrance. When you think of antique fire trucks, almost everybody thinks of an American LaFrance. The newer American LaFrance, as they were about to wind down production, did not have that same rounded front.”
Seeing it in person
Vinson said the truck appeared to be in pristine condition in the auction photos, and it didn’t disappoint when he saw it in person for the first time Thursday at New Kensington’s No. 3 station. His one word description — “Awesome.”
“It’s much better than any of the other trucks I bought,” he said. “It’s really a beautiful truck.
“A lot of trucks from different areas have been beat up and not taken care of. The chief and the department have done an excellent job maintaining that truck.”
Driving the truck himself — a diesel with a 50-gallon tank that gets about six or seven miles per gallon — Vinson’s itinerary has him spending Thanksgiving with family in North Carolina before leaving for home in DeLand on Nov. 30. Each leg is about 700 miles.
New Ken plans for new vehicles
Proceeds from the auction will go into an escrow account New Kensington will put toward buying new vehicles, Saliba said. Including Vinson’s payment, it will have about $26,000, City Clerk Dennis Scarpiniti said.
The city will need a new aerial truck in the near future, as the one it has is 27 years old, Saliba said.
That’s expected to cost more than $2.5 million.
Vinson would like to add an aerial or ladder truck to his collection. But while he has buildings to store the trucks he already owns, he doesn’t have a place for one that big yet.
“That would probably be the extent of the trucks that I would want,” he said. “It may not materialize but I never quit looking.”
Truck might visit New Ken
New Kensington will host the Western Pennsylvania Firemen’s Association convention in August. Vinson said he might bring the American LaFrance back for the parade, which will be on Aug. 9.
“That’s what the intent is — not just buying them and putting them in a barn or hiding them somewhere, but putting them in the public’s eye and bringing them back to where they were before,” Vinson said. “It would be an honor to be able to come back.”