I Bought A Firetruck | Hacker News Reader

I Bought A Firetruck

geckodesigns.kinja.com

708 pointsamartya916273 comments

Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler?

First it was stretch limos, then Hummers, then Hummer stretch limos. I wonder if we're gonna see stretch limo fire trucks…

Edit (since I'm being downvoted): The story is cool, I just find the fact that he's driving it daily to work completely retarded. What the hell I consider driving a car to work to be hardly justifiable at all in our trade, but a 31 year old fire truck is sending a giant fuck you to anyone else trying to reduce their carbon emissions.

There is a (non-stretched) Fire Engine Limousine in my hometown, I don't know which company it belongs to but I've seen it a few times in central Manchester. Looks like this:

http://www.needalimo.com/our-cars/novelty-limos/fire-engine-...

If someone wrote about their experiences travelling the world, would you make a similar criticism? After all, they are flying, which causes a lot of extra carbon emissions.

Or is the fire truck particularly bad for some reason?

As a European I don't understand the american fascination with impractically fhuge cars for every day commuting.

Okay I get it, you want a big car for that roadtrip or vacation. Understandable, I do too. But for everyday stuff? My hatchback does perfectly fine around town ... hell, it does perfectly well on most vacations and long drives too.

There's no complicated fascination. It is simple. People like big cars because they are spacious, feel safer, provide a higher vantage point, and a host of other reasons.

Your hatchback is perfectly fine around town, but it can't tow a boat, and most people don't like to have multiple cars.

So, what winds up happening is people buy the most car they think they will need. It's totally overkill driving to work, and plenty of people never actually tow that boat, but this is why it happens.

Europeans would do the exact same thing, I figure, if they lived in an economic climate with similar gas prices and car taxes and such. With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small.

> With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small.

It's more the rule than the exception. European car makers have a specific car category named "City cars", big enough to host 4 to 5 people but as small as possible to be easy to park etc.

Driving, and worse parking, an american sized SUV in europe is very painful. This is why he don't understand.

American cities are modern and built for cars, most big european cities have been built for walkers and horses, so now we got a tons of oneway streets and a general lack of space to park cars.

Or the smaller ones for 2 people...

Combine that with a fairly sophisticated highway system that runs everywhere around the country, a post-war boom in car and suburban home ownership, and low cost of fuel, and it becomes imbued within the culture as the norm.

> Driving, and worse parking, an american sized SUV in europe is very painful.

This is a very important distinction! What a European considers a huge SUV is a small town car in the US. At least judging from what I've seen on my visits.

Some of those cars are just uncomfortably big.

It kind of depends where you live in the US. I live in a rural PA town where they have built highways over dirt roads and the main state route into town is a two lane country street that carries 18 wheelers every hour of the day and has a never ending backup.

Parking on main street, for example, is nigh impossible. Parts of it aren't wide enough for many cars to go past one another while the streetside parking is in use (and it always is, the town has no parking since... who needed parking in 1800?). And then there is a big state university in town, so you end up getting delivery trucks to the campus all the time and some drivers don't have the experience to know not to try taking an 18 wheeler down main street.

Okay, I give up. It's either Kutztown or Lock Haven. I've been to Lock Haven, it's not an amusing place to navigate (especially the campus).

I've only ever been to Kutztown and didn't think it was too bad (granted, I was in a mid-size sedan and not an Escalade), so my money's on Lock Haven.

"but it can't tow a boat"

It probably could and where the hell would I even put a boat. Silly americans :D

Depends on the boat. I want to buy a 13ft one-man sailboat that weights 130lbs. Any car can tow that. Some people have boats that weight two tons. Good luck towing that in a Fiat 500.

Well, when you win the lottery and are able to actually buy that boat, perhaps you can budget in the cost of a car to pull it?

This "aspirational" angle to buying big cars actually explains a lot, like a fat kid drinking Gatorade or out of shape guys wearing tracksuits to the mall, "just in case". After all, if you're driving a big car, no-one will be able to definitively say you don't own a boat..

Yup, it's even a common marketing angle. Ever heard of greenwashing? SUV marketing often depicts a vehicle being driven offroad and/or through rough conditions, when 99% of their buyers will never use the car like that. They are playing on buyer's desire to cultivate a certain image.

You might be surprised. 50 years ago it was a major issue, but now engines are powerful and small so all you need is a tow hitch and a small boat. EX: Toyota Corolla can tow 1500 lbs which is a fair sized load.

Granted if, you want to pull a 22' boat that's another story. But, for lake fishing it's fine.

First, plenty of boats weight more than 1500lbs, especially if you include the trailer. Trailers always weight more than you think. For example, U-Haul's smallest utility trailer is 630lbs.

Second, there are more issues than power. Towing 1500lbs behind a Corolla puts a lot of strain on the car that it wasn't particularly meant to handle on anything other than an occasional basis, especially with things like automatic transmissions. Also very important, a Corolla is 2700lbs. 1500lbs of trailer starts to get sketchy, and the trailer can start yanking around the tow vehicle.

Edit: yes, you are right, lake fishing in a rowboat, you don't need a dedicated tow vehicle. Thing is, people dream they will get that 22' boat in a few years, so they buy the F-650 or whatever.

U-Haul's designing that to last though a beating and carry cargo for a boat you can go as low as a 125 lbs for the trailer. As a SUT-200-S will handle a 200LB boat and it's shipping wieght is 125 lb. http://www.clcboats.com/shop/products/boat-gear/boat-transpo...

Anyway, sure there are limits, but a nice 14 foot boat at 1,000lb plus 500lb for the trailer is still a decent boat IMO.

Toyota Corolla can tow 1500 lbs which is a fair sized load.

While the engine can handle it, that's generally not the issue with towing anymore. Like you said, todays engines are powerful. It's the rest of the car that needs to be beefed up for towing. Particularly the transmission and breaks.

My 4-runner had plenty of power to tow my boat, but over time the wear and tear on the rest of the vehicle would destroy a perfectly good car. I now have a Tundra that is build to pull the load. FYI, my boat ready to fish plus trailer is ~7k pounds.

To the original poster wondering why people want such big cars. Personally I would love a smaller car, but I enjoy my boat more :)

I've got a Toyota 4Runner, perfectly capable of moving people and towing a trailer on rare occasions. It also comes in really handy when we do our Costco grocery shopping.

For the "everyday" commute, I'm proudly on the bus and noticing as of late that this is getting more and more common with younger age groups who want to live in urban areas, where mass transit is most convenient. I would bet this trend continues for the next few decades in the United States.

Agreed. I do most of my commuting by bus, and mostly drive my car nights and weekends, when the bus doesn't run as often, or my few trips out of town - most months I only fill up once. That said, I wouldn't get rid of my car: I live in one of about 15 cities in Canada large enough to have a decent bus system [1, >300,000 people], and when I make the 15 hour drive a quarter of the way across the country to visit my family, I need the car to get around, because they live 10 kilometres from the nearest town large enough to have a supermarket. Public transit is awesome, but most of my country simply doesn't have the population density to support it (the distances and travel times are similar in the US, though there are more cities, so I understand the car culture)

[1] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/d...

Im a European, well British anyway....

Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of travel there is in the US. Which kinda begins to explain this fascination with big large cars with big lazy engines. These cars fit American geography and scale. I think it also explain what oil seems that bit more important to the Americans.

See, Im pretty sure that if an American came to live in the UK (maybe else where in Europe) and tried to run a big old American car here, it would take about a week before this American when off and bought a little European type car. Equally, Im pretty sure we'd ditch a small Euro type car for a big old American thing is we went to the US.

I too think American cars are a bit silly, but I think they make sense in context. I think American cars will get smaller and more efficient, but I think they will always be designed with those long distances and scales in mind.

"A Brit is someone who thinks 100 miles in a long distance, and an American is someone who thinks 100 years is a long time."

To give you some sense of how "local" 60 miles can be in the US, I live a more urban life style than most people in the US (although likely less than most people on this board), but I frequently drive 60 miles simply to have dinner with friends or family. We never considered that a hike, it's just a quick trip in the car.

Our 2005 Honda CRV is approaching 120,000 miles, and both myself and my fiancée telecommute.

I'm in the UK (Scotland) and I don't think twice about driving 6 hours in one day to go skiing (3 hour drive, say 6 hours skiing, 3 hour drive back) - in fact thinking about doing that tomorrow.

A colleage just drove/ferry back home from Germany - which nobody regards as anything unusual.

I'm in the UK (Scotland) and I don't think twice about driving 6 hours in one day to go skiing (3 hour drive, say 6 hours skiing, 3 hour drive back) - in fact thinking about doing that tomorrow.

A colleague just drove/ferry back home from Germany - which nobody regards as anything unusual.

The idea that most people think that 100 miles is a long way is silly.

I think you've hit a nail on the head here. I grew up Los Angeles, and for us, driving 60 miles round trip for dinner was totally normal.

I drive a 2012 Subaru Impreza. Before that I drove a 2001 Hyundai Accent and before that a 1997 Kia Sephia. All of those are small cars, maybe it is because I am from The Netherlands but I never considered a large car, they slurp gas like it is going out of style and I want something compact that I can park almost anywhere.

What I do like is that even with a small circle of friends it is almost guaranteed that you know someone with a large truck that can help you move large things, such as couches =).

A Subaru Impreza is considered a small car ?????? It's more than 4.3 meters long !

I have a Renault Twingo (3.4 meters long), and before that I had a Maruti 800 (3.2 meters long).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twingo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruti_800

That's what I consider a small car :) . My father had a Fiat 600 (the original one), and now has a Suzuki Maruti Alto/A-Star

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Alto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_600

The current best-selling car in Uruguay is the chinese-made Chery QQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chery_QQ

Those are tiny!

In the States, a Subaru Impreza is a compact car in size

I know, but what called my attention is that the poster is European.

Part of my family lives in Austria, and what they consider a "small car" is more along the lines of a Volkswagen Golf, which is a little under 4 meters.

According to Wikipedia itself, the Impreza wold be a "Compact" (what North Americans consider a small car)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_car

while the Golf would be a "subcompact" (what I thought Europeans considered a small car)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcompact

and the Maruti would be a "city car" (what we Uruguayans consider a small car)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_car

My grandma owned a Toyota Aigo and now drives a VW Golf. Love both of those cars, but I like the station wagon like look from the Impreza.

Yes, the Impreza is a small car, I've seen people drive that in The Netherlands (although Subaru seems to be pretty rare there). Compare it to an Audi A6 wagon for example, plenty of those available.

I guess small is in the eye of the beholder, my car isn't much bigger than my grandpa's Opel Astra for example, and that is considered a small car in The Netherlands.

My wife and I both have a 70-80 mi round trip commute. Between our two cars, we average about 41MPG commuting. Also, we both don't commute everyday, that said, we still manage to have put 50k miles on each of our cars in 3 years. California is not a small/compact place.

Given how little I currently commute (2x/week), I am actually considering trading in my diesel VW for an old vanagon -- to facilitate some camping trips and the like. It will mean less milage efficiency, but 2x/week commuting won't take a huge hit.

> Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of travel there is in the US. Which kinda begins to explain this fascination with big large cars with big lazy engines. These cars fit American geography and scale. I think it also explain what oil seems that bit more important to the Americans.

I would daresay it's more cultural than geographical, or at least it's an isolated case. Distances here in Australia are even larger, yet SUVs/4WDs don't outpace the small-medium car sector in year-over-year growth.

Ahh, but in my limited experence in visiting Australia your roads are in MUCH better shape. In some parts of America road maintaince is poor and the demand for an SUV is in part a desire for better driving experence.

Now in six US cities: https://www.car2go.com/

My 8.5 year old car has 31,000 miles on it. I haven't had a job since 2007 where I have to drive to work. My daily commute now is a 1.5 mile round trip walk. I hate traffic and don't understand other Americans who are fine with driving long distances on a daily basis.

America is a big country, and Americans drive everywhere, and so 100 miles isn't that far.

But this is exactly why gas guzzling cars are idiotic.

The sense of scale is noticable even in this article. The author is parking a fire engine on his driveway. Here in Europe a driveway is one or two car lengths of gravel or paving blocks.

In the US, everyone's driveway is more like something approaching a major civil engineering undertaking, being the size of a tennis court, consuming several cubic metres of concrete, steel reinforcing, etc.

They're really only that big out in the exurbs.

There are a lot more middle of nowhere locations than there are exurbs in the US.

Yeah, I should've said "exurbs and beyond".

I wonder what the stats on that are. I can only think of a hand full of US metro locations that would actually have areas that I would think of as exurbs and most of them are on the coasts (sans Chicago and maybe Dallas/Fort Worth).

Since I'm not a researcher I can really only speak to my experience around Milwaukee. Basically any town within Milwaukee County doesn't (as a rule, there are exceptions) have that kind of space. But further than that, there's quite a bit of space. Probably still not fire-engine-storage space, but at least riding-mower-recommended space.

Most millionaires here in Uruguay don't have a house that large.

I can't believe how big U.S. houses are. A quick Googling shows they're much larger than the average house in my country:

Average House Size By Country Australia - 214.6 sq m (2310 sq ft), 2.56 people per household (pph) USA - 201.5 (2170), 2.6 pph New Zealand - 196.2 (2112), 2.6 pph Canada - 181 (1950), 2.5 pph Japan - 132 (1420), this year the pph in Tokyo dropped below 2 for the first time (1.99) UK - 76 (818), 2.1 pph

and those are averages, I'm sure median shows a different picture (small flats for Europe and urban Latin America, large houses for suburban U.S. and Australia).

The median for a flat here in Montevideo is about 60 square meters (the one I rent is 55 square meters, and most new ones are even smaller), and the median house is about 100 square meters (and forget about the humungous driveways and stuff the U.S. suburban house has).

http://notbuyinganything.blogspot.com/2012/03/average-house-...

That sounds about right. I grew up in sacramento, CA and commuted about 30 miles to high school (centrally located private high school that had much better test scores than the public schools less than 5 miles away from my house.). Many of my classmates commuted just as far, too, so it's not like I was weird for doing so.

Apparently the fascination is ending:

"According to Polk's data, the large mainstream sedan segment has plunged from a 5.8-percent share of the US car market in 2008 to just 3.5 percent in 2012. That sales drop is enough to put this most American of car bodystyles behind the minivan segment, a market whose own sales slide has been comparatively well documented."

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/03/24/large-car-market-witherin...

I currently drive a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup and love it. Do I have a need for it all the time? No. But there were a few factors that went into the decision:

- My wife wants to get a boat as well as we were gifted jet skis by her family.

- I anticipate moving at least three times over the next 10 years (the lifetime I give to the car barring any accidents) which the pickup will be great to be able to move things as well as being able to hookup a UHaul and go.

The biggest plus for me though is that I'm 6' 3" and 250lb and don't necessarily fit into some of the cars that are economical when it comes to fuel. My previous car (Toyota Corolla) actually would hurt my knees when driving more than 30 minutes because I had to angle my legs in a weird position in order to drive.

Cut the guy some slack, he lives in Montana. Space and distances are hardly a rare commodity in Montana.

It's OK for other people to have a bit of fun. Really, it is.

This is one thing that bugs me about complaints about the carbon emissions of cars. Planes cause far more carbon emissions, and they do it way up in the atmosphere where it seems plausible that it actually does more damage. It's a giant elephant in the room.

You can take steps to reduce carbon emissions in cars (smaller car, drive more efficiently, etc), but you can't with planes other than not flying. Luckily, it's in the best interest of airlines to reduce emissions since that means less jet fuel and more profits.

Indeed, this is true. Thanks for this. The realization that it is also in the best interest of an airline to reduce emissions, especially as the price of oil increases, really helps make me feel better.

Not flying doesn't really reduce emissions though... Those planes are going to fly whether or not you are on it.

Of course it does reduce emissions. Increasing demand for flights means the airlines fly more planes.

>Not flying doesn't really reduce emissions though... Those planes are going to fly whether or not you are on it.

On an individual level, sure, but not flying reduces demand, which in turn reduces the number of flights.

> On an individual level, sure, but not flying reduces demand, which in turn reduces the number of flights.

Try to get flights from London to Paris or from Paris to Lyon. Not flying stops planes from flying very quickly.

> The realization that it is also in the best interest of an airline to reduce emissions, especially as the price of oil increases, really helps make me feel better.

The new Dreamliner jet is a good example of this (once they solve the battery problem and can fly the sucker...). It's massively more efficient than its predecessors (20% more efficient than the 767 according to Boeing). That's a huge jump.

Not flying doesn't really reduce emissions though... Those planes are going to fly whether or not you are on it.

This is an extreme example of tragedy of the commons type thinking. Why bother doing anything because someone else will do it anyways?

I would just like to add, that the general person uses a car a lot more often than a plane - and it all adds up.

A lot of cars are used by a single person. Almost never (generalised) to it's full potential.

I'm uncertain about this, but I think most planes are very well utilised (closer to the full potential rather than to the opposite) - since it's so uneconomical to go empty or close to empty utilisation.

I'm not however disputing that a plane emits a lot more emissions than road bound vehicles.

"the general person uses a car a lot more often than a plane"

Average CO2 per person in the US is around 17 tonnes per year[1].

A single flight from LA to NYC (round trip) is equivalent to about 2 tonnes after taking into account some high-altitude effect[2].

Driving 12,000 miles per year at 25mpg releases about 4 tonnes[3].

So, if you cut your driving in half and then take one long domestic flight, you are just breaking even. If you take multiple long flights per year, you really have no hope of staying below the average carbon footprint for an american. Unless maybe you live in a tree or something.

I'm not saying this to be critical. I fly, and I am not ashamed of that. But we should be honest with ourselves, and not think that riding a bus once in a while and buying locally-sourced vegetables makes up for taking three international trips a year.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviatio... [3] http://www.stewartmarion.com/carbon-footprint/html/carbon-fo...

Dude, it is a single firetruck, not a fleet of firetrucks being driven around to pick up groceries. If he were starting a trend, then yes perhaps this would be a-bad-thing. Instead, it's one guy fulfilling a lifelong dream. The gas mileage is going to be terrible and the emissions bad, but it's one firetruck.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

The maxim is simply "if you're really interested in fire trucks, and you can afford one, then you can buy one," and there's no problem with it becoming a "universal law," because very few people will be that interested in fire trucks.

Also, if everyone were to try to buy firetrucks, the price goes up — and makes me wonder how supply and demand fits in with the categorical imperative (if at all).

Kant was wrong.

Do you want to live in a world where I get to decide if your lifestyle will scale to seven billion people?

Because I'm thinking your computer would use less electricity and cause less CO2 pollution if it were half as fast as it is.

>Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler?

Well, yeah. Seriously though, I didn't get the impression that he drives it every day, and the town that he lives in is tiny. I doubt anyone would. I don't know if he mentions it but I'd estimate the bounds for his fuel mileage to be 4 mpg to 10 mpg.

>What the hell I consider driving a car to work to be hardly justifiable at all in our trade

If you lived in Missoula Montana, I doubt you'd consider a car / truck as optional.

> Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler?

No, this is just one person, don't think it's representative of Americans.

Whatever you do, don't Google "Unimog".

Oh, Gods, why did you have to say that ;-)

I have fkn loved Unimogs for years. To make matters worse, I live near a dealer. Lucky for me I can't afford a new one and even the used ones command a pretty penny.

How about buying a LEGO Unimog for $200? :)

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Mercedes-Benz-Unimog-U-400-8110

> Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler?

Not at all. It’s just that in the USA, things are on a different scale, and it makes sense to have larger vehicles.

For example, a couple of years ago on eBay I bought a second-hand carrier battle group. Now, if you’re not from the USA, I can already hear you objecting that “it’s impractical” to drive a small fleet of ocean-going vessels on suburban streets, or that “it’s wasteful” to retain a staff of thousands just to make the daily commute, or that it’s “not all that great, environment-wise,” to knock over city blocks every time I make a Starbucks run. And, in your country, I’d guess you’d have a point. But here in the USA, once you factor the need to carry back all the stuff we buy at Costco, you can see how the extra capacity of a carrier battle group would actually save you trips and, in the long run, be more efficient than a smaller vehicle. So, once you think it through, it actually makes sense.

It’s all a matter of scale.

This made me laugh out loud - thank you!

I thought I was bad driving my farming combine to work and back. I feel so much better now.

I had a similar experience buying a MiG-17 as my primary vehicle to commute to work 17 miles away. The DMV was initially not happy about my taking off and landing on quiet highways, but luckily they became more understanding after many letters. How much did you end up paying for your CVBG?

Guys, I understand wanting to maximize your load-carrying efficiency, but decommissioned naval vessels and military aircraft are not the way to do it.

For my commute, I chose rail instead – Budd Pioneer III-series rolling stock go for surprisingly little on eBay these days, and at least where I live, it's not terribly expensive to file the paperwork for a zoning easement to add a 700v third rail to a local stretch of freight rail (you can usually find qualified installers on Craigslist).

These rolling stock are single-operator capable, so the staffing costs can be quite low, and generally buying electric for a home rapid transit system is far cheaper than buying fuel for a home naval vessel or home fighter jet, especially if you can power down the transformers while you're at work.

Sometimes I look at my bicycle and feel small and insignificant.

Don't worry: I think the chap with the carrier battle group might be overcompensating for something :)

>Guys, I understand wanting to maximize your load-carrying efficiency, but decommissioned naval vessels and military aircraft are not the way to do it.

I disagree. I understand the limitations of land-based military vehicles, but tmoertel has it right. Oceangoing vessels make for quite practical daily drivers. If you can afford it I would highly recommend a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. I take it as a point of pride and efficiency that I only need to refuel it once every two decades, though I admit that sourcing a sufficient quantity of reactor grade fissile material for two separate reactors may be a bit of a hassle for the average commuter.

However, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. The 260,000 horsepower provided by the reactors supply plenty of energy to operate an on-site synthetic biofuel manufacturing facility to provide liquid fuel for the fleet of light aircraft in case I want to go to Costco or anywhere else not equipped with large enough pier to dock the carrier, and you can get a pretty good deal on decommissioned F-14 Tomcats these days. Plus, flying over all the traffic at Mach 2 is really satisfying.

And as time passes and technology improves the operating costs continue to fall. I've joined up with a pilot project in a joint venture between Google and Cyberdyne Systems to develop a self-driving carrier, and so far they've been able to reduce the required crew complement by more than 30% in just two years. I estimate that before the end of the decade we'll have it fully automated and then every American family will be able to operate their own carrier and fleet of fighter aircraft.

Private railcars are luxury...

I feel like this kind of comment should be on Reddit, not HN.

The other side of this is that the energy and pollution cost of creating a new car are very significant. You'd have to extend the life of the gas guzzler for quite a while before there's a net increase in pollution vs. a new vehicle.

I sold my car and got the Humvee of bikes, it can carry two loads of firewood, or two kids, or a kid and the plants we got at the garden store. Most of America is batshit crazy but in Portland, Oregon the no-car lifestyle is catching on. Hopefully other cities too.

Bike photo! https://mobile.twitter.com/jchris/status/312728928919896064

Awesome bike mate! I'd love one of those but I currently get by with a racer for work and panniered up road bike for shopping but that bike is the bomb! Some couriers use them in London, if I had somewhere to store one I'd buy in a shot! Enjoy!

Somewhat smaller but probably the same level of practicality: http://donkybike.com/specs/

SUB - Sports utility bike: https://twitter.com/andrkoel/status/208851605599174656/photo...

I've actually driven this bike with complete windsurf and kitesurf set in the trunk.

> Most of America is batshit crazy but in Portland, Oregon...

You're joking right? Portland was nauseating. Filled to the brim with smug hipsters who apparently share your sentiment: that the rest of us are insane for having a car to travel to work/home/vacations etc.

Yes. :-)

Depends on how far it is to his work, I mean the thing is a novelty. And reducing carbon emissions isn't the point of it. It's about him following his dream of something he's loved all of his life.

I've always thought that an old firetruck would make a much better RV conversion platform than an old bus. The reasoning is that a firetruck (especially a pumper truck) has a suspension that is designed to carry much more weight than a bus so you would not be as constrained in what you could build on top of it.

Jay Leno did an excellent column about how amazing fire trucks are in terms of durability.

The OP said that "fire trucks" weren't designed to drive on the highway at highway speeds, which is a bit of an over generalization. The National Forest Service for example has a number of trucks in California that are tasked with driving up and down the state to fight wild fires. They not only drive on the highway, they end up with a couple million miles on them before they are retired.

In terms of practicality (there isn't much :-) but a ladder truck has the ability to put you fairly high up somewhat "away" from the truck. (although an inexperienced operator could easily tip over their truck if they weren't careful) and they have those pretty awesome hydraulic stabilizing legs. I sketched out briefly a sort of 'circus tent' RV where the tenting was connected to a ladder truck's ladder which could then extend up and allow you to stake out a tent around it. A number of issues there, from the outgassing of the truck into your tent :-) and the ladder has a specified end load that it can move around which is often less than 500 lbs so you end can't really hoist canvas, you would get away with light nylon at best.

But in terms of interesting vehicles to own I agree with the author that there is a certain cachet there :-)

I live next door to a busy firehouse, and I've heard plenty of gripes about the perils of their newer truck vs the mid-80's pumper with 350k miles that replaced it. Based on the frequency that I see the department's backup engine next door, I tend to agree.

Basically, the new trucks are unibody and much more fragile -- it turns out that new firetruck demand is driven by smaller/volunteer departments that don't put a ton of wear on the equipment. Minor accidents and mechanical breakdowns on the newer gear are major repair incidents that require weeks of downtime.

The old trucks were basically custom cabs sitting on a truck frame. Not very comfortable, but tough enough to survive 30 years of service with 2,000+ calls a year in a northeast city.

That's the problem with durable equipment. It doesn't need to be replaced as often so the companies that make it go out of business.

It would be a neat one-off RV, but the cost of removing all the fire truck bits and building a living area would likely exceed just starting from a van or bus and beefing up the springs.

My bus/RV conversion weighs about 18 tons. It has 6 ton front axle and in the rear it has an 11 ton and an additional 6 or 8 ton axle. While a fire truck has a ridiculously strong suspension, if you used that for an RV, you would get a punishing amount of vibration and shaking. I guess you could ballast it, but you'll waste a lot of fuel hauling ballast around, in addition to being dangerously underpowered in some situations. I think that a fire truck is not a good candidate for an RV conversion, unless you have a very specific definition of "Recreation" in mind.

That is a great point about the suspension. The water doesn't care about bumps. A bit of searching lead me to this interesting page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_apparatus which supports your thesis. Since a bus is designed for riding comfort much of the suspension work is geared to that. That is something I really hadn't thought enough about.

If you significantly increase the bus's weight your going to want to change the suspension anyway. So, really it's just a question of how much of a conversion are you doing. With a bus you can just rip out the seats add a bed and a fridge and call it done as you keep the weight about the same. However if you going wild and thinking about adding your hot-tub then I think a firetruck may be a good option.

I tore so much industrial strength junk out of it. The seats? They were incredible, built to last many years of transit system abuse. Another example, a wheelchair lift that looks like it came from an aircraft carrier, and could lift an aircraft. I don't see ever re-adding that much weight. The most significant thing I've ever had was 300 gallons of potable water (and 8 companions + gear) for our last trip to BRC.

I remember a mythbusters episode where they stuck a half a ton of clay on a regular car, and it didn't affect fuel economy. So there's that.

Rewatched and they did test with the full weight and as you said no (noticeable) change with the added weight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKxEkT2H8pI#t=322s

I know that Mythbusters isn't generally hard science but you know.

Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/397/

As I recall that episode didn't test 'fuel economy' as most people think of it, but instead 'fuel economy when driving straight at a constant speed on flat ground'. This was not an error -- they were up front about it; it was more a question of controlling variables. Still, it keeps us from generalizing the weight data to actual vehicle cost of operation.

Some friends of mine turned a 1963 firetruck into a 2:1 scale VW bus: http://walterthebus.org. The suspension was a key reason they went with a firetruck. A bus foundation would not have supported the 330 gallon water tank used in the onboard misting system.

Okay, that is just crazy cool.

Nice:

Accessories 330 gallon water tank for the onboard misting system Onan 4000 watt generator Air Conditioner for the sleeping/VIP room 10,000 plus led lights Safari style front window frames

I have been involved in the fire service for some time. Yes you could use that type of fire apparatus to convert to an RV but as was stated the suspension on the fire truck is ruff at the best of times (some of the newer ones with air suspension aren't horrible). The National Fire Service will rely on large brush trucks which are more like modified F350 for forest fires. While a pump will be utilized it won't be the bread and butter for them. My point being that the fire truck pumper is radically different from a brush truck.

That's pretty cool, as a toy. Too bad he doesn't seem to have any use for it in that capacity.

Don't know if I can agree with him driving it on routine trips around town. Not only because of the extra gas consumption and CO2, but it also takes up a lot more room on the road, and it's a lot slower on acceleration wasting everyone's time behind him. When someone has a purpose for having a huge truck on the road you tolerate it, but if I found out I was stuck behind a slow firetruck because some guy wanted to tickle his own fancy I'd be less tolerant.

Yea, practicality isn't the end all of life, but don't be a dick.

Edit: Just wanted to add, it also puts a lot more wear on the roads especially during spring when the ground frost is melting. You might be within the law to drive it around, but your County Road Commission will not be pleased.

I'd be pissed to be his neighbor. The firetruck spews dirty exhaust, is unsafe if there are kids running around, and definitely is an eyesore. Even though there's no HOA he is probably running afoul of city or county zoning rules...you shouldn't be able to park large work trucks in residential neighborhoods.

What makes the truck more unsafe around children than e.g. a Ford Explorer or similar?

If nothing else, the fact that it would attract children, whereas I've seen few kids who are interested in playing on (versus in) the Ford Explorer.

It also would have far worse visibility than a Ford Explorer.

That said, I don't think it is an argument for whether he should be "allowed" to have the truck or not. If there was evidence that people with large truck always hurt kids, perhaps; but I don't think that evidence exists.

Attracting children is a good one I hadn't thought of.

As for visibility, I think that probably cancels out with a responsible driver. The fact that it's harder to drive will engender additional caution, for probably no major net change in danger, assuming he can avoid getting so used to the thing that he gets sloppy.

Of course should be allowed to own the truck, but I'd have a problem with him parking it visibly and operating it regularly in a residential neighborhood.

These are good points - pollution, eye sore, blind spots, etc. I try to be really careful with it and be aware of my surroundings as much as possible. As far as the neighbors are concerned, I weighed purchasing the fire truck that I'd always wanted against possibly pissing off the neighbors. The rest of that story is history.

A ford explorer can stop on a dime. A fire truck cannot. A fire truck also has a blind spot equivalent to 3 ford explorers.

If the blind spot were really a child safety factor, then the sight of a UPS or FedEx truck would terrorize parents across the world.

I'll also bet that his fire truck can stop better than you think, especially if he has left the ~500 gallon water tank empty.

As a kid I watched a UPS truck run down my dog on a quiet residential street.

Sorry about your dog. A school bus got my cousins' dog under the same circumstances. The two of them had to helplessly watch the whole thing from the bus.

better keep kids away from school buses, clearly dangerous

/sarcasm

You'd be surprised to know how many kids are run over by school buses every year.

Looks like about 15 per year.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811165.pdf

As someone whose job involves driving a maintained 1996 Pierce Arrow (same model as his, but 15 years newer - funny, the body looks near identical), I promise you, the fire engine (random detail, in the US fire service, this is an engine, a truck is a ladder truck) can NOT stop better than you think, even empty.

On the other hand a new tender (or water pumper) CAN stop on a dime, as its brakes are based on it carrying three to four thousand gallons of water, so when it is empty...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433803

then watch your kids like a parent should

I like living in a place where my kids can play in the front yard without non-stop surveillance. Every parent has had a kid run out of sight in the back yard, a store, or the mall. The idea that jerks like you say things like that every time something bad happens to someone's child really pisses me off.

I'll agree with you that "watch your kids 24/7" is unfeasible. But I did think of something that would get the same results in this case: teach your kids to respect the property of others. It always confused me that, for example, trampoline owners could get in trouble because local children, without the permission of the owner, came over to jump on it and fell off and broke a bone. The kids are at fault, and that reflects on their parents.

To be fair a trampoline is pretty irresistible to a child. It's like leaving a big barrel of sweets unattended.

This is long established common law. Just because it is your property, you cannot escape your obligation to mitigate obvious hazards, particularly where children are involved. So hanging a tree swing that is unsafe and snaps, injuring a child playing on it, still creates liability for you even though the child was trespassing.

Parental neglect is a well established law as well.

One that is not defined by watching your kids 24/7 as you seem to think

While thezach's comment does come across as being from a jerk, keep in mind too the same reaction applies to "every parent" who expects the rest of society to curtail every possible activity that might hurt their unsupervised child.

Does anybody really think it's a rational argument to make, that this guy _shouldn't_ buy and drive his own fire truck because it's a risk to "the children"?

Kids bike and play in neighborhood streets. Surely you recognize that some untrained guy driving a massive firetruck up and down that street just to get groceries is a problem.

No. I was always taught not to play in the street.

If only it had some kind of noise making device that could be used to warn kids.

Like an air horn. ;)

Then make sure your kids are responsible and know that if they hear a big hearty diesel fire up in the fire truck that they should GTFO ...

My kids know not to run out into traffic and they know to stay at my side when walking in a parking lot because they have been told over and over that it is a dangerous place (and punished for doing otherwise). But, no matter how well they know it if I pull into a parking lot of a restaurant and Grandma and Grandpa are standing there, the kids run for them in excitement. They are smart for their age, but they are still little kids.

That's why public safety has to be a balance between rights and responsibilities that may not always seem "fair" to some. I can not say what my kids would do if I pulled into that cul-de-sac and they hopped out of the car and saw a firetruck sitting right there. I know I would not want any old belligerent "its-my-right-of-way" guy driving that thing but I doubt there will be some sort of epidemic of firetruck driving in my area any time soon.

(As a farmer I think I come to this with a different perspective than most. I work with heavy equipment all the time in a yard where my kids run around, but in a remote yard with just your kids it is pretty easy to do a head-count before you move something.)

>Even though there's no HOA he is probably running afoul of city or county zoning rules...

Many days I can't find a good reason to appreciate living in the US. I'm glad that there are places to live where a guy can buy an old fire truck if it tickles his fancy. I'm also glad that there are ticky-tacky neighborhoods with HOA's in towns with strict zoning, so you and I won't have to be neighbors.

I also can't think of a reason why I should fear for my children's safety if my neighbor had one of these in his driveway.

These trucks are huge and have blind spots...there's a reason you need a commercial driver's license to operate them in most states.

So you keep saying. What's the big deal about blind spots? So, he shouldn't reverse without a spotter, and he should be extra careful merging on the freeway. Looks like he has a circle-driveway so, he's got that covered. Seriously, this thing isn't any worse than a Class-A RV, a vehicle which, like it or not, requires no special driver license.

I'd be glad, wouldn't it be cool? Probably he also shows it to neighbours. And you could tell everyone "I live two houses from the firetruck".

I joke that their proximity to my firetruck should reduce the cost of their home owners insurance. They should be thanking me :)

won't they please think about the children!

It probably worried the neighbors up to the point where they realized there wasn't a fire.

I can't imagine he'll end up driving it enough for that to be a problem. In 2 or 3 years (more like 6 months) he'll get tired of moving it around and paying for fuel. In the end the worst case scenario will end up being caught behind the guy as he heads out to some small town's Christmas parade so their real engines aren't being wasted driving Santa down Main St.

For $1,500 he got a deal. It is worth at least that much in scrap.

I just bought a warehouse. Similar - I always wanted one. I'm going to turn it into a house and put a roof garden on it and put a sweet garage in to fiddle with cars and set up some office space and generally cause havoc in there.

I could drop dead tomorrow. It's nice to tick these ambitions off, although my ambitions always seem to make it more likely that I will drop dead tomorrow.

(It's in Manchester, UK if anyone wants to come and lug bricks around.)

man, I want a warehouse, too. A buddy just bought one and is renting some space in it to me for ventures and my workshop, and we're doing a joint business venture in another part of it, but it's not the same as owning the place. (That, and he'd not like it if I started sleeping here.)

It's a cool dream. Just be sure you know what you're getting into. This guy ended up having a harder time of it than he expected: http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/shop-management-owner-i...

Yeah. That's one of the things I hope to learn a bit about by partnering with my buddy on one of the ventures inside the warehouse.

It's complex, but it's a negotiation, like anything else, and eh, that's something I'm not good at now, but I'm getting better.

How does that work zoning wise?

Have to apply for a change of use. The location is bordered by houses anyway so it hopefully won't be a major issue.

If it's big enough, I've always wondered if you could basically drive some form of caravan/motor home into something like that and live there while you renovate the place.

That is exactly my plan. I'm planning on driving a motorhome into the workshop area and kind of decompressing out a house from that.

Hey Alex, before Christmas you offered me to spend Christmas day at your place, while I turned it down for an offer from a friend I would love to repay your kind offer with some free labor :)

I get paid on Thursday (relevant for bus costs), I live in Darwen and I'm free next Sunday, so if you still want some help I would love to come down!

Hi Shane, thanks, dropped you an email.

I live about 20 minutes away from Manchester, would love to come down and lend a hand if beer is involved somehow?

Absolutely. I'd love to have you down, and will certainly keep you refreshed. Later down the line perhaps we can get a microbrewery going in a corner of the workshop!

My absolute dream would be to have a bit of an open workshop for people who like doing stuff.

Drop me an email - me@alexmuir.com

A warehouse is my dream, too. A huge warehouse that's kind of run-down (but still safe to be in). That Simpsons episode is what did this for me.

Haha, I vaguely remember that one - will rewatch it at some point.

What's the bureacracy like with that? Are you just keeping a low profile and doing it on the "beg forgiveness" principle or are you doing all the proper paperwork? Or is it actually less of a hassle in that respect than I imagine? I'd assumed that converting a business space into a residence within the UK would be like one of the more byzantine scenes from Brazil.

I'd be very interested to hear more about it generally.

People make a big deal out of permits and the like, but as a one man show the local departments are usually very helpful and straight forward. There are also large swaths of the US where there isn't even any zoning or permits required.

Have you been to Britain?

I still want an office in a light industrial area with a concrete wall/bollards/ditch, and a roller gate, behind which I could park a 5 ton truck and/or unimog or fire truck or something (so as to make it impossible to drive through the gate). I had no idea fire trucks were even cheaper than old 2.5 or 5 ton military trucks.

Okay I'll bite. Why?

I don't know about him. But having had my home broken into many times its easy to become obsessed with preventing entry into your home.

I'm not really that concerned about people breaking and entering (I have guns...) while I'm in home or office, but secured parking would be awesome.

Guns don't help when you aren't home. That is usually when people choose to break and enter.

Onsite power, generators, parking for cars, a big tower for RF, satellite, security, etc. A perfect office normally and set up perfectly for disaster response when the earthquake eventually hits. Being able to get $0.95/ft2 NNN on Pioneer, and taking an entire building, so each employee has 500+ square feet...

Imagine being the only place with real comms, security, and competent people (i.e. non-government), just like my friend who stayed in his ISP in NOLA after Katrina, or my office in Baghdad, or any other situation like that.

For anyone interested in the crazy live blog of the Katrina aftermath from the guy holed up in his ISP in New Orleans, start here: http://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/27/

This is the guy you're talking about, right?

Yeah (interdictor or ikilled007 from lj)

Right around the corner from where I live there is an old fire station that the municipality doesn't know what to do with. For the last 2 or 3 years it was used by artists for various purposes but that turned out to be too expensive, last I heard is that they're converting it to be used by startups as of coming summer. It has a huge yard behind it with enough room to park 50 fire trucks (old industrial zone). So, if anybody is interested in doing something with an old fire station in the city center of an historical European city, I'm sure the municipality of Maastricht would love to hear from you.

Someone got their childhood dream!

Mine was shattered when I found out that my dad didn't drive trains (An electrical engineer is apparently not the same thing). Since then, I've ridden on many trains, but I haven't driven one (yet).

We did this http://wplives.org/ral.html with our kids, yes they let you actually drive the locomotive around, it was freakin' awesome!

Wow! ... I live in central PA and we're blessed with quite a few "steam excursions" and there's a local historical rail society too. Unfortunately, none of them allow you to "drive the train".

Come to England. Steam train driving sessions are a common way for the restored branch lines to raise funds.

Thanks for that link! I just forward it to my wife and a bunch of friends we sometimes travel with. Thanks!

Hooray for firetrucks! Back in undergrad, my fraternity owned two firetrucks, and for about a year I was in charge of them. One was a 1940s ladder (with an open cab and still-functioning ladder), and the other was a 1960s engine (closed cab with still-working pumps). Tons of fun to drive around campus... except for the time I clipped a parked car with the engine. Oops!

My nightmare scenario here would be being parked somewhere near where a fire breaks out, and then having to tell people that no, I can't actually help them.

Or passing an emergency and getting flagged down. I'm hoping that nothing like that ever happens.

This is completely immature and un-professional. I want one.

I wonder if the author realizes what a waste it is to drive a big car (let alone a fire truck) to the grocery store.

We all love nature. We go out of our way to live in a place where it is more spectacular. And yet we do our best to shit on it with the damn gas guzzlers. Because, you know, it's fun!

It'll be slightly offset by the fact that it has a diesel engine. Not enough to make it equivalent to car, but it's something...

I've always wondered: why aren't there more diesel cars in the US?

Because they used to stink and rattle.

From what I gathered from a quick look at Wikipedia, probably the biggest factor is that diesel engines are best used for high-torque, low-speed applications.

This.

In Sweden 90% of the cars are diesel because they need the high-torque and low-speed in the snow, plus Sweden is big and there's only 9 million of them so most journeys are pretty long.

The 90% number is not true. Although the percentage of diesel cars has gone up dramatically, it is not that high. In 2011 only 17% of cars were diesel driven[1]. During the first two months of 2013, 63% of new cars were diesel[2].

[1] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2011A01B/FORDON_2011_v... [2] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2013M02/Trafikanalys_1...

With, of course, the usual "exception that proves the rule":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI

1) They developed a negative reputation as being stinky, noisy, and complete dogs when it comes to performance.

2) Something to do with the sulfur in US diesel. Up until somewhere around 2005, US diesel had more sulfur than, for example, Europe. I think the issue was that diesel passenger cars would have trouble passing emissions requirements due to the fuel. (Trucks generally have more relaxed requirements)

Edit: Ah, here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-low-sulfur_diesel#United_...

Start at the paragraph beginning with "The allowable sulfur content..."

Early on they earned a reputation for being expensive, slow, powerless, dirty, junk; thanks mostly to GM. GM for whatever reason, didn't want to invest much in a diesel engine, so they cobbled one together from gasoline engine plans, with different heads, crank, cams, etc. The engines were terrible, and it was a well known failure. Maybe it will be forgotten with the death or dementia of the last baby-boomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_Diesel_engine

Doubtful, even today's kids are wary of diesels, and I say that as a 24 year old...

The capital expense of a turbo diesel engine is unattractive given low U.S. fuel taxes. If fuel costs approached European levels, Americans would go nuts buying them.

The grocery store is perhaps a mile away, and he perhaps goes twice a week? So that's 100 miles/year, two orders of magnitude away from the national average. It's also substantially less co2 production than a flight from SFO to Hawaii.

Catalytic converters have a minutes long warm-up period beforce they approach a narrow interpretation of "effectiveness".

Oh, and since we are talking about diesels, they produce diesel particulate matter, ultrafine particles that can cause anything from cancer to nausea. Even modern diesel engines can't completely filter them.

If your point is that it's possible to do things that produce more egregious emissions, that's obviously the case. But that doesn't really justify anything. Billions of people, each making what they consider to be minor environmental indiscretions, adds up -- if we can speak in general terms about the math for the time being.

It sounds like he's not stealing his fuel or evading taxation on the vehicle, so any problem you have with it is a problem with your local tax structure. Take it up with the government, not HN.

(I think people are upset that clean energy costs more than dirty energy. But I'm guessing I pay a lot less to ride my bike to the grocery store than he pays to drive his fire truck there. So perhaps things are working as intended.)

To be fair it's not really that much more impractical than driving a HUM-V around in urban areas (which is frighteningly common), and definitely way cooler!

Does it have a built-in telescoping ladder - that could actually be quite a lot more useful than the firehose...

Don’t you guys have voluntary fire brigades or volunteer-driven agencies for technical relief[0] over there? Sure, you can’t get your groceries with one of their trucks, but driving them is still pretty fun I was told. Plus you don’t have to park them in your driveway.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technisches_Hilfswerk

Depends on where you live. In this guy's case, it looks like he lives in a smallish Montana town, so yeah, it's pretty likely that his local fire department is volunteer-run, and joining it would be an alternate way to get this experience. Could be more commitment than he wants, though, since you typically have to take training courses, not to mention actually commit to responding to fires and other calls (a large percentage of fire-department calls are medical responses rather than fires). That's a bit different than just buying a truck. On the plus side, that could itself be interesting, and would be the way to go if you wanted to really learn to operate firefighting equipment.

Some numbers [1]: about 70% of U.S. firefighters are volunteer while 30% are career jobs, but the vast majority of the volunteer firefighters (94% of them) serve communities with under 25,000 people. Medium-sized towns and above typically have a professionally staffed department.

[1] http://www.nfpa.org/displayContent.asp?categoryID=955

Traffic accidents, railway suicides, stuff like that can be pretty gruesome. You have to be a certain type of person to be prepared to deal with that sort of thing.

It turns out there are no actual aircraft carriers for sale on eBay. I am disappoint.

They just don't come up for sale too often...

http://www.kungfo0.org/theweb/ebay/carrier.html

Never know what you may find on ebay...

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-050902a.html

I didn't make that up! I saw one a couple years ago that was for sale. I contacted the seller and asked if it came with a trailer. I just couldn't resist. He never wrote back but it WAS for sale on eBay!

rurounijones posted a link:

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_...

That's too damn cool. $ 7,000,000 is surprisingly cheap since it was still in service.

I wonder if they kept the armor?

I'm coming down to Missoula for Barcamp in April. I expect a ride on this thing.

A firetruck ride might convince me to make the trip over for Barcamp...

When is Barcamp this year? I'll bring it :)

April 13th. https://www.facebook.com/events/337629019680637/?ref=22

Danny Hillis, co-founder of Thinking Machines (maker of the Connection Machine), bought and drove an old fire truck around Cambridge, MA, in the 1980's. I guess that was a lot harder than getting around Montana!

I grew up in the mountains outside of Napa. One of our neighbors was very wealthy, and also paranoid about fires (brush fires are very dangerous in that region). He owned a fire truck aside from many other vehicles. One day an arsonist set fire to the mountainside, and he had a heart attack because of it. A new person bought up his property, and I would visit their house sometimes, and see that firetruck, not knowing the backstory. I just thought that wealthy people owned firetrucks because it was cool. :)

Nice story. Must have been amazing to grow up there.

What a great thing this would be for someone that does kid's parties or activities. I have a firefighter friend that borrowed a reserve engine for a water-themed kid event we had. He had fun for 2 hours, spraying people 100' away with water. For a while, everywhere I walked, I had a constant stream of water hitting me on the top of my head.

Someone else has had that idea; I had a quick look on eBay UK, and found this party-limo-fire-engine business for sale:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fire-Engine-Limo-business-for-sale...

My kids' school had a fundraiser auction last year where one of the items you could bid on was a ride to school on a fire truck. I'm still mad I didn't have a budget to bid on it.

This is so awesome. I used to make my mom drag me around town to various fire stations so that I could look at their goodies. I was obsessed with that stuff as a kid.

Congrats on doing it! I myself have a bucket list item to grab an old Crown bus (the ones that look like twinkies) and drive that beast all around the US.

Maybe I missed it, but how did he get it shipped to Montana?

flatbed semi

That must have cost more than the actual vehicle? The "sustainable" part of my mind is competing with the "cool project" part.

I'm not sure which is going to win out yet. I wonder how competitive it would have been to send it by rail?

He does say it was more to ship than to purchase.

I've been trying to forget about that part of this - the cost of shipping SUCKED.

Did you investigate rail shipping? I had a collectible truck shipped by rail and it was much cheaper than OTR. It was some time ago though, but I imagine for something as large as a fire engine it might have been very cost-effective.

Yep! I briefly looked into it but was told that it wouldn't be possible to get it anywhere close to me by rail.

Reminds me of the old bulldozer that I very seriously thought of purchasing (always wanted a dozer). But in my case it was only about 5 miles away in a farmer's front yard with a "For Sale: $1,700" sign on it. Getting it home probably wouldn't have cost more than about $300.

A friend of mine bought an old excavator for $800. He spent about $1500 on fixing up the hydraulics, and used it to landscape his property. It was very rough but still went OK. When friends dropped around (like me) he would happily let us dig massive holes and fill them in again. I had a very happy afternoon digging and filling in, giggling like a kid in a sandpit.

He ended up selling it for a small profit to a guy down the road, and they just drove it there - clank clank clank down the street. I was sad the day I went around and the digger was gone.

A fire track? I always wanted to get a tank! Gabriel, thanks for this post. I now believe that everything is possible.

I posted a link especially for you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433711

Maybe I missed it but did he end up shipping it? He mentions it would cost more than the truck itself, and mentioned his wife chiding him for not researching this more but no actual description of how he transported it.

He explained in a comment how he ended up transporting it with a flatbed trailer:

"It was transported by a semi on a flatbed trailer from Ohio to Montana. I looked into all kinds of less expensive alternatives including paying someone to drive it, but I couldn't get anything reliable to pan out."

http://geckodesigns.kinja.com/it-was-transported-by-a-semi-o...

I'm not into firetrucks myself but something from this rings really true - if you don't put aside time and (a little) money to do extraordinary things, your life will be an endless procession of the mundane.

Waiting for the follow-up article: whether the pumps really work, how well they work, whether it came with a firehouse (and if not, how much those cost+shipping), and fun things you can do with a big jet of water.

Actually, I'd think you'd need a bit of training to operate a firehose (assuming the sellers showed you how to operate all the buttons and levers). But once you have all the safety aspects down, you can go out to a lake, set up an intake hose and make a cool water display. Waiting for the pics.

Fire hose isn't cheap, nor are nozzles (probably looking at a couple of thousand dollars for a 100' of 1 3/4" hose and a variable nozzle.

Using the deck gun is another matter altogether, and is not something he's likely to be able to do other than emptying a swimming pool:

Most combination nozzles on a deck gun are designed to control flow rate between 750gpm and 1250gpm at 80 psi.

A Pierce Arrow typically has a 750 gallon tank, so you have around a minute run time on the deck gun before its empty (and a fire engine pump is not something you want running dry).

You can set up hard suction (to draw from a non-pressurized source), but its debatable a) whether you can get sufficient flow at all from the vacuum alone, let alone b) while filtering the water sufficiently (because stones, mud, silt, trash, fish don't go well through a fire engine pump) at a rate to run the deck gun.

Sadly, it's not likely to happen without being hooked into a hydrant. You might be able to run a handline or two, but that's about it.

I want a plane.

Something tells me that if you got yourself a plane and then posted about it here, you'd get treated a lot more nicely than the OP.

The world has become a cynical and mean place. The guy bought a freaking working fire engine, and all people can do is whine endlessly about how impractical and wasteful it is...

But yet these same people wouldn't say the same about an aircraft, race car, or similar. Even though those are likely MORE expensive and equally as wasteful fuel wise.

Whatever, you get your plane! And you have fun with it. Ignore all these haters and cynics.

I want a jet fighter. I wonder if I could get a relatively new one. All weapons would have to be removed of course. It would be the sports car of the air. I would need to get a billion dollars first though so that I could afford top notch maintenance. This would be my expensive toy. Instead of a yacht the new "in" thing could be buying a sport jet.

In reality, I like the idea more then the reality of it. If I really had a billion dollars I would simply buy a porsche and use all my free time to do research.

A billion dollars for a fighter plane. Good lord, this actually brings into context how fucking rich Bill Gates is. This and the fact that he can give every single person on Earth a billion dollars each and still be among the richest people on the planet.

wtf happened to the math here?

i think you're off by about ten orders of magnitude

Much cheaper and as much fun to buy an aerobatic airplane. I know you can purchase decommissioned Russian fighters, but I have no idea what they cost.

"Ellison also owns at least two fighter jets: an SIAI-Marchetti S.211, used by the Italian Air Force, and a decommissioned MiG-29, for which the US Government has refused him permission to import"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison

I still find myself staring at firetrucks. Kind of like muscle cars. I love the chunky, iconic design, the chrome, the impracticality and noise.

I understand exactly where he is coming from. One of my fathers cousin decided the farm needed a firetruck and decided to pick up two. It was the first on the scene when one of our barns burnt down. Pumps didn't work so great and did a little spurt by the time the fire department came. Great memories.

I always wanted a school bus. Something to build into an rv for far away hunting trips and weekend tailgate extravaganzas. I did some searching, and running buses are suprisingly cheap. Someday when I have a place to put it, I'm going to jump all over that.

Jacuzzi/spa in place of the water tank(s)? Are they set up so that would be possible?

"Even though it's 31 years old and technically qualifies as an antique"

What makes something technically and antique? I was under the impression that 50+ years was measure of antiqueness but I can't remember why I think that.

Depends on the state you live in. In Montana it qualifies for special license plates when a vehicle is 30 years old.

https://doj.mt.gov/driving/license-plates/#antiqueplates

Although by driving it to work he probably violates the 'general transportation' provision.

The problem with antique registration in Montana (and this wasn't made clear on the state website) is that you can only drive an antique to and from parades and/or car shows. I had originally planned to register it with antique plates because it's more affordable than a standard registration. That was a deal breaker though.

I'd guess that he means relative to other vehicles on the road.

He follows that with "it looks like a modern fire truck." Apart from things like GPS and maybe improved radio communication, I'm curious as to what design and feature improvements have come along, considering those in nearly all other modes of transportation over the same period, and the importance they serve. E.g. do firetrucks really need to be that huge? It seems like a huge disadvantage, especially in cities.

> do firetrucks really need to be that huge?

How many thousands of gallons of water can a Prius hold? =)

Don't fire hydrants solve that problem?

Only when present and working, which is not guaranteed.

This is a fundamental problem with emergency services. When a major emergency happens, it happens all at once, and you need a lot of manpower and equipment to handle it. All the rest of the time, when more routine emergencies happen, all that manpower and equipment looks like total overkill, and it is, except for being prepared for something huge.

So, yeah, you don't need a truck that can carry thousands of gallons of water to respond to a house fire when there's a hydrant down the street. But you want that truck to be available in case the shit really hits the fan hard, and since you have it, you might as well use it.

In somewhat rural areas, you see standpipes sticking out of plenty of bodies of water (generally if they are big enough and near the right road).

Not when you live 10 miles from the closest one, no.

Does anyone remember the two-seater firetruck arcade game? That thing ruled.

edit: this! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Truck_(video_game)

No, but firetrucks in GTA were always a fun ride.

My favorite word starts with an f and ends in a uck. It is indeed firetruck.

Relevant Kids in the Hall sketch - "Quarter Life Crisis": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiESfUGC_Pw

"A total of $3,600 which also happened to be the hard limit my wife had imposed on this particular invaluable transaction." cough

Isn't $3600 kinda ridiculously inexpensive given that a Civic costs over $15k? What's the insurance and mileage on that thing like?

Article says the milage is 47k, crazy low for its age.

Engine hours is where it's at. I bet the engine has been rebuilt several times.

Supply and demand. There isn't a huge market for 30 year old used fire trucks, so the prices are low. As the author found out, a fire truck isn't the most practical vehicle in the world--certainly not as practical as a Honda Civic.

If you were buying a car, and were offered those two choices, which would you pick? I'd definitely go for the Civic despite the 4x higher price, because it's far more practical.

$3600 is approximately the scrap value for the thing.

Would make a good movie title (We Bought a Zoo)

so this is my favorite thing, ever.

so you see we can do anything we want to ! Its much more related to the "out of the box thinking". If you can't do things you were planning since childhood how are you supposed to be creative and pursue your dreams let alone Change The World!

This is awesome! My kid would be ecstatic if we drove a firetruck to the grocery store.

How many people looked up "aircraft carrier" sales on ebay after reading this article?

Aircraft carrier on Ebay you say?

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_...

The British MOD (Ministry of Defence) has an auction site for surplus equipment from shows, clothes and jeeps up to (occasionally) aircraft carriers.

And people think the homeless guy on the corner has mental health issues...

You inspired me, i will follow my dreams and nothing will stop me.

Thank you so much.

A great way to express the term "Always remember to pursue your dream."

Awesome!

You could offer rainmaking as a service during dry summers.

how does voting work

WHAT AN AMAZING STORY ABOUT HACKING!

Seriously, HN needs to see if there is a service out there that spams these type of sites with these horribly uninteresting reddit/digg/boingboing/hurrderp stories.

> horribly uninteresting

That's your opinion. And apparently the community doesn't agree with you.

I wish I had downvote ability right about now... so I could negative karma you even more. There is this constant argument about these kinds of stories on hacker news. It's not about being 'hacking' related, it's about being interesting and informative. I'd say the story qualifies for both.

I think its very interesting... and to be honest it is hacking in a way... not just in the technical way you want it to be.

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