One of our last big projects as part of the Showcar Group, was to restore a 1978 American LaFrance Century Pumper truck. We gave it the nickname “Sparky”, although “Smokey” was also an option for a while. We don’t really have our own fire department at Hendrick Motorsports, but the truck, formerly in service for 25 years at the North Wildwood, NJ Fire Department, is now used inside the Hendrick Heritage Center as part of a display. That display is a tribute to Papa Joe Hendrick, and how his donation of a Chevrolet tanker truck helped to start the Fire Department in Palmer Springs, VA.
Being a good bit outside the scope of our usual work, we found it to be a daunting task, primarily because of its size, but we took lots of reference photos of all the areas we disassembled. Finding parts was a bit of a challenge, as we learned just how custom fire trucks are ordered from the factory. We were able to secure the last inventory of some of the parts involved, and we felt quite fortunate to find them.
When it was completed, we invited our friends at our responding fire department in Concord, NC, to come see it and take a few photos with their own engine unit. They’d previously let us shoot one of their trucks and the door of their station for decoration inside the Heritage Center, and we thought this photo shoot would be a nice touch. We even provided them with both digital and a framed version of the posed pics as another thank you.
