custom COE 1 off ex fire truck
Description
1955 GOVERNMENT ISSUED DUTCH FIRE TRUCK
HI
What we have here is a unique true 1 of a kind vehicle.It was sold by GM to the city of Anloo in the Netherlands and they issued the company named Berwi in Winschoten to transform it into a fire pump/tank/resque vehicle.They started off with a COE cab n chassis and cut it all off exept for the floor and firewall and built everything by hand from the firewall back.All you see is built in 1955, the only thing i added was the liftgate in the back so i could close it up.
It had a big suction pump on the front of the truck wich was connected to the crankshaft operated through a clutch lever next to the pump, there was also engine controls on the outside of the truck so fire men could rev the engine up to suck up the water from wherever they needed to into the 1500 GAL tank.From the tank th water went into a PTO driven high pressure pump wich could operate 3 300ft hoses at the same time… all the paperwork to prove its a true 1 off come with the vehicle even the blueprints are there!!!
BUT….
Going to SEMA in a fire truck is’nt gonna do much neck breaking so i made a little conversions to make it road ready and especially sema ready.
The truck has been 100% built in belgium using only th prime parts humans can buy or fabricate. SO,
first of all i bought a 2003 silverado DURAMAX LB7 2wd dually and gutted the motor out of it.That had 62000 miles when taken out and had a mini overhaul to make sure we can really drive it a little further than on and off a trailer..allison 1000 5spd trans and a GM 14 bolt rear end with 4:11 gears pushing it forward.
We installed a 80gal heated tank which can be heated to drive the truck on filtered waist vegatable oil.The conversion is done and up and running.
i also bought a 1992 C3500 for the front clip wich was narrowed by 7” in order to accomodate the narrower frame rails of the COE.
Since the coachbuilders made the cab a unibody i was’nt able to separate the body from the frame and had to convert myself into elastiboy to bend myself into places a human being cant be bent :-)In order to lay it frame i got myself a cnc plasma cutter and started fabbing up chassis parts to completely box the frame with 3/8 plate…
Also a 20” kick up in the back and a 7” kick up in the front was needed to get it as low as that.It has SLAM specialties RE-8 bags all around and they ride as smooth as you can get!
The wheels started off as 6 lumps of aluminum and have 71hours of machine time in the first one and 45 in the other 5, YES its a true dually…My design 24” billet wheels.
As far as interior, i used the front seats out of the 1992 truck as a base cuz they really sit comfotable.The whole cab has been sound proofed and been updated with stereo and soundsystem.custom leather has been added troughout the cab exept for the wooden bench seats wich were in such a good shape that i descided to keep those in place.
TO get to SEMA i shipped the truck from belgium to Baltimore, Mariland and drove it all the way to vegas so it now has 4500 mile on the clock with no issues what so ever.We were doing 70 MPH on 2000RPM almost averaging 17MPG on cruise control and air conditioning
I hold the right to end the auction at any given time.Truck will be issued in various magazines incl cover shoot
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