A picture is worth a thousand words, but I am about to write that many to tell you about this photo! :-) (forgive me). Some of you may have noticed this photo which is perpetually posted for sale on eBay under the title: 1972 Ford Pierce Crown FIre Truck Photo Cowlitz Kelso. The one thing left out of that description is Snorkel. Because this is in fact considered a Crown Pierce Snorkel (but not a Firecoach). Crown entered an agreement with Pittman in 1960 to sell Snorkel platforms on its fire apparatus (63 Snorkel elevating platforms were mounted to Firecoach apparatus) and this agreement continued after Snorkel was spun off from Pittman. Working with Snorkel Corp., Crown also sold many Squrts and Telesqurts as well. In 1971 Crown became the west coast authorized sales and service center for Pierce, and began marketing and selling Pierce pumpers built on conventional (mostly Ford C cab) chassis, as well as mini and attack pumpers. Crown only had one assembly line for the Firecoach division and the deviations from the custom chassis to conventional truck chassis had always been a problem. The Pierce agreement allowed Crown to stop building fire apparatus on conventional chassis and concentrate on just custom Firecoach builds. As part of that relationship, Crown also took over the outfitting and delivery (and warranty service) of west coast Snorkels built on the Oshkosh chassis (and branded Snorkel on the front and with bodies built by Pierce) as well as the Snorkels mounted to Ford C series chassis (with bodies built by Pierce). These were issued Crown job numbers and model numbers such as COPS-125-85-56D (Crown Oskosh Pierce Snorkel, 1250 GPM, 85-ft boom, Detroit Diesel). And back to this photo - it was built for Kelso, WA and later went to Colwitz County Fire District 5 in Kalama, WA. It is CPS-100-55-53 CT900 which if I am deciphering right stands for Crown Pierce Snorkel, 1000 GPM, 55 (probably should be 50) ft Snorkel, Ford 530 gasoline engine, CT900 series cab. The truth is that about the only thing really made by Crown on it is the badge they put on the engineers compartment door, in front of the pump panel. But now if you follow the Crown Firecoach Fire Apparatus Facebook group youll know that when some of us refer to a Crown Ford Pierce Snorkel or Crown Oshkosh Pierce Snorkel it is not a joke!
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 06:42:49 +0000
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