Famed fire engine gets model treatment

By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer

February 25, 2007

GREENWICH - The unblemished red body of the 1931 Seagrave is embellished with several seashell crests, a visual pun on the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department's name cooked up by the legendary fire engine manufacturer.

"It's unique to the truck and one of the great things about it," said Capt. Stanley Thal, a longtime Sound Beach firefighter. "Seagrave prided themselves on the artwork and doing something different."

Opening the hood of the engine compartment, Thal gingerly lifted the hinge to avoid scratching the pristine red paint.

After several rounds of design between the department and a Norwalk-based toy company, a die-cast miniature of the truck, complete with the Sound Beach moniker, will soon come off an assembly line in China for sale to the public.

The department expects by May to receive a free carton of the toy trucks, which it will sell for $20 to $25 each to raise money.

The manufacturer, Lipenwald Inc., got the truck right, even mimicking the antiquated appearance of the engine, the rich wooden compartments and vintage leather helmets hanging aboard the truck.

Last year, a company representative contacted the Sound Beach department about making the toy.

"We're very excited about it," Thal said. "The level of detail is amazing."

Lipenwald declined to comment but made a photograph available.

The company has made die-cast collectibles of other fire engines, including the 1949 St. James Fire Department Mack L. Pumper and the 1947 Ahrens-Fox HT Piston Pumper. It also makes police, military and hot rod die-cast collectibles, according to its Web site.

The Sound Beach department acquired the truck in July 1931 for $13,000 from the Seagrave Fire Apparatus Co. The still-active company is now based in Philadelphia.

The truck remained in service until 1964, when it was sold to a collector in Clarion, Pa.

When the collector was dying, he offered to sell the engine back to the department, and the engine was reacquired by firefighters in 1979 for $5,000.

Clifford Frost, a former deputy chief who joined the department in 1947, coordinated the truck's refurbishment, which took about six years. The Seagrave now appears several times a year during the Old Greenwich Memorial Day Parade, an Easter egg hunt, Christmastime and out-of-town parades.

"We bought it back so we could restore it and maintain some of the history of the company," Frost said.

For Frost and former Sound Beach Chief Paul Palmer, the firetruck spurs memories of its days in action and the free spirits who served in the department.

Starting the truck requires an elaborate priming process, including pouring gasoline into each cylinder of the engine, Frost said, and using a hand crank under the engine.

"It takes half an hour to start," Frost said.

"It's really an art form getting it into gear," Palmer added.

Palmer, grandson of founding department member Nelson Palmer, recalled an incident in the 1950s when the overheated truck's exhaust vent set a grass fire around the truck as firefighters battled a blaze at a wool mill.

"So we were fighting the fire around the truck, too," Palmer said. "If the flames had jumped to the gas tank, the whole thing might have gone up."

Frost said the truck sometimes stalled going downhill, leaving the driver at the mercy of its sometimes dicey brakes. "You'd be rolling downhill and waving to people, but they didn't know you couldn't stop," he said.

The truck once crashed into the front of Cuffy's, a newspaper store owned by volunteer fireman William Cuff across from the firehouse, Palmer recalled.

"The mechanical brakes couldn't stop that rig," Palmer said. "You could slow it down, but you couldn't make a normal stop."

It was normal from the 1930s to 1960s for Sound Beach Avenue merchants like Cuff to be firefighters, Palmer said.

When Cuff responded to calls, customers would help themselves to merchandise and leave him money to pay for it, Palmer recalled.

Palmer said the toy truck was a great event for the fire department, which had invested so much time and energy keeping the Seagrave in good condition.

"I'm looking forward to getting one," he said. "We always thought the truck was something we cherished and liked, and that it was a very impressive engine."