Loading
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Vimeo
Welcome to Cars of Dreams Museum
  • Home
  • About
  • Current Collection
  • Past Collection 1
    • Past Collection 2
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu

Past Collection – 1985 American LaFrance

American LaFrance (ALF) is an American emergency and vocational vehicle manufacturer, currently based in Summerville, South Carolina. Focusing primarily on emergency apparatus fire engines and fire aerial including ambulance and rescue vehicles.

History
The American LaFrance Fire Engine Company is one of the oldest fire apparatus manufacturers in America. With roots that go back to approximately 1832, the companies that went on to become American LaFrance built hand-drawn, horse-drawn, and steam-powered fire engines. Founded in 1873 by Truckson LaFrance and his partners as the LaFrance Manufacturing Company selling hand powered equipment. The International Fire Engine Company, corporate predecessor of American LaFrance, built some steam power fire engines between 1903-1907. Apparatus built by International included horse drawn steamers, hose wagons, and hook & ladders to chemical engines, water towers and combinations. The American LaFrance Fire Engine Company was formed in 1903. Its corporate offices and manufacturing plant were in Elmira, New York. It also operated a Canadian plant in Toronto, Ontario, where it sold apparatus under the name Lafrance-Foamite, until 1971. ALF delivered its first motorized fire engine in 1907. Over the years, American LaFrance built thousands of fire trucks including chemical engines, combination pumpers, aerial ladder trucks, Aero Chief snorkel trucks, and airport crash trucks. The classical style of the American LaFrance apparatus is easily recognized. Some of the company’s innovations led to changes in the industry, most notably the cab forward style cab. The company has recently undergone a major rebirth and is once again producing custom fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

In 1995, the company was bought by Freightliner LLC, which is a subsidiary of Daimler AG. Freightliner continued to utilize American LaFrance’s original nameplates and designations including the Eagle custom chassis. Many of their Liberty products are built on Freightliner LLC M2 or Sterling Acterra chassis. ALF has additional manufacturing facilities in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, Sanford, Florida, and Hamburg, New York. As of 2005, they are the fifth largest manufacturer of emergency vehicles in North America.

In December 2005, it was announced that Freightliner had transferred the ownership of American LaFrance to the New York-based investment firm, Patriarch Partners, LLC. The headquarters and main plant in Ladson, South Carolina were not included in the transaction. However, Patriarch Partners were allowed to use the plant until early 2007, when DaimlerChrysler began using the plant for assembly of the Dodge Sprinter. Under new ownership ALF relocated within the Charleston, South Carolina area in summer 2007 to a brand new facility including manufacturing and corporate HQ, with nearly 500,000 sq ft (50,000 m²) of total space

On January 28, 2008, American LaFrance filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy blaming an ERP implementation project [1]. On July 25, 2008, the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a revised business plan to transfer the firetruck body building portion of the business to the remaining Hamburg, NY (formerly RDMurray Inc.) and Ephrata, PA (formerly Ladder Towers Inc.) facilities. The Summerville, SC plant would continue to manufacture fire truck cab and chassis, but would focus on vocational vehicles and the Condor vehicle line.

© 2014 CarsofDreams.com
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Vimeo
  • Home
  • About
  • Current Collection
  • Past Collection 1
  • Past Collection 2
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only