What else do you drive besides a HC?

[Stormtrooper1320]

Yeah... these things are a rabbit hole, for sure.

Just have to find the right one, to start with... as you know.

Bob

Man, in the 90's you could get those all day long for $2500. Majors Surplus in Gardena (I think) had them for sale. I wanted one to make into a camper, but you need the room to park one of these. They aren't fast, but they will go anywhere. A lot of the first ones that came in were gas powered, and they were slow. The diesels weren't any faster, but I think they could carry more. About 45 mph was topping these things out.
I still think they're cool.

 

[Jimmy N.]

... but you need the room to park one of these.

Not really. Especially modern cars are very easy to drive up on. And thanks to the portal axles you shouldn't even lose any paint on the undercarriage.

 

[Stormtrooper1320]

Not really. Especially modern cars are very easy to drive up on. And thanks to the portal axles you shouldn't even lose any paint on the undercarriage.

This is the one we had for a rescue truck when I worked for LA County. We had so much gear in that thing that 45 mph was it, you could go a little faster going down a hill. We we would take it to a call, even with the lights/siren going, people would pass us all the time because they hated getting stuck behind us going so slow.

They finally put it out to pasture. I bet it didn't have 15k miles on it when they did. Only a few of us would drive it because everyone else hated it.

 

[BULL]

This is the one we had for a rescue truck when I worked for LA County. We has so much gear in that thing that 45 mph was it, you could go a little faster going down a hill. We we would take it to a call, even with the lights/siren going, people would pass us all the time because they hated getting stuck behind us going so slow.

They finally put it out to pasture. I bet it didn't have 15k miles on it when they did. Only a few of us would drive it because everyone else hated it.

View attachment 20252

The Wheelbox truck...



As in a box with wheels....

 

[BULL]

1961 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Futura
Duplex Ambulance/Hearse

Who you gonna call?

 

[Jimmy N.]

We we would take it to a call, even with the lights/siren going, people would pass us all the time because they hated getting stuck behind us going so slow.

Hey, I may have passed that one a some point. When there was a fire going, living in an extreme fire hazard area I might have exceed the speed limit by a smidgen on occasion to get home asap.

One year I got a call while at SEMA (yeah, there's Vegas again) and since I happened to be driving a bright red Dodge pickup, I turned on the high beams and went for it.
Afterwards I realized that I had averaged over 100 mph.

On the other hand, early one morning heading for (would you believe, Vegas?) I caught up with a fire truck with its lights and sirens on, doing about 40 up the hills and maybe 65 downhill. No other northbound traffic.
Yeah, there was a large fire somewhere to the north. I lasted maybe 30 minutes before I "forgot" that it was illegal to pass that fire truck.

 

[Stormtrooper1320]

The Wheelbox truck...



As in a box with wheels....

Yeah, that thing had hi-rail wheels on it so it could ride on train tracks. if you look just infront of the front truck tires, you will see two little wheels. There are matching sets on the back. You had to lock the steering and then you could only go maybe 5 mph down the tracks because the big truck tires would over power the little rail wheels. The truck had a huge winch on the front that we would use to pull wrecked cars off the tracks when the people would go around the crossing gates and get hit by the train. You can see the front winch in the pic on top of the bracket assembly for the outriggers. There are matching outriggers in the rear. This thing had a huge PTO on it to run a big hydraulic pump. The hyd tank was on the passenger side, right next to the diesel fuel tank, and yes, idiots would put diesel in the hyd tank, even though it was painted blue. I even painted "HYD FLUID ONLY" in big red letters on the hyd tank to try and keep it from happening. The brackiets on top of the box on the drivers side held two aluminum planks with holes in them for brackets that held a hydraulic ram and an anchor bracket. These were used to re-rail the train if if went off the tracks. That crane on the passenger side top of the box was used to get them down. There was a control table that sat in the back of that box to control all of the hydraulic accessories. In those side boxes were all of the emergency lifting and re-railing equipment (big jacks and air bags) that we had plus oxy/acetylene torches, etc. The fire dept's didn't have gear that would lift the train if someone or something got caught under it, so we would have to go out there and lift it up. We had all kinds of gear in that thing.
And because I have the bad habit of raising my hand and saying.....sure....I'll do it.....I got to be the liason for the tactical teams for the various LE agencies in SoCal and the feds too. If something happened and someone or a group of someone's took over the train, I was supposed to go there and disable it for them while they distracted the someone or someone's. There were numerous ways to disable it without getting caught but me and my bad habit got me selected. Plus it was fun. I got to do a lot of cool training with them.

Here's a pic of the back of the truck.

 

[NetNathan]

2006 Charger SRT8
Inferno Red (Just a blur to most folks) with All Factory Options / Groups, SRT8 Mats, Side moldings/rear ram's head shaved
Billet Technology all over + valve covers and coil covers, KillerGlass Pipe, LMI FIV CAI, 180 Tstat, Magnaflow 3" exhaust
MPR Motorsports built 6.1 based/392 NA Stroker, BBK 85mm TB, TranZformer, Kooks Long Tubes, 3.70 LSD Hellcat rear cradle
DSS Aluminum driveshaft, BCR coilovers with Hotchkis sways and Nitto 245/45/20F - 295/40/20R NT555-G2 paws

 

[Stormtrooper1320]

when things like this would happen...

 

[Jimmy N.]

That must've been a very interesting job, Mr. Storm.
I'm sure it involved a fair amount of coming up with unusual solutions. I would've loved it.

 

[Stormtrooper1320]

That must've been a very interesting job, Mr. Storm.
I'm sure it involved a fair amount of coming up with unusual solutions. I would've loved it.

Yeah, and the thing I could never understand was people driving around the crossing gates. That Light Rail train went 55 mph through most areas, so it was 60 seconds from the time the gates went down, the train went past, and the gates went back up. But so many people were just too busy.....until they weren't. There's a set of freight train tracks that run just the other side of the Light Rail tracks and those trains were slow like most freights. So many times people would make it around the gates, and past the freight train only to get nailed by us on the blind side.
It was interesting. It was a lot of late nights. I had fun most of the time. I got to do many cool things. There was a core group of us who would do the emergency responses. Most of my coworkers didn't want to do them.

 

[Jimmy N.]

Yeah, and the thing I could never understand was people driving around the crossing gates. .

God keeps coming up with new ways to weed out the hopeless cases, but we seem to do our best to protect them, no matter what.

 

[BULL]

2006 Charger SRT8
Inferno Red (Just a blur to most folks) with All Factory Options / Groups, SRT8 Mats, Side moldings/rear ram's head shaved
Billet Technology all over + valve covers and coil covers, KillerGlass Pipe, LMI FIV CAI, 180 Tstat, Magnaflow 3" exhaust
MPR Motorsports built 6.1 based/392 NA Stroker, BBK 85mm TB, TranZformer, Kooks Long Tubes, 3.70 LSD Hellcat rear cradle
DSS Aluminum driveshaft, BCR coilovers with Hotchkis sways and Nitto 245/45/20F - 295/40/20R NT555-G2 paws

Welcome Stranger...

 

[ACMAVRO]

Ram 1500
Cobia 196
Challenger HC
Durango limited
In that order... I swear I drive the boat more than the HC. Next upgrades are either the boat or the Durango

 

[fumanchu182]

2006 Dodge Ram 1500, with the uber reliable 4.7L v8. 250k strong and not even hiccup out of it.

 

[Blow By]

1987 Grand National
2012 300 Hemi
2019 Pacifica
Can't have too many toys!!
Bob

 

[Hemiride]

My main vehicals is my 2015 GMC 4X4

 

[metomwwhou]

My other car is a 2015 M4 named Kimber!
She's full bolt-on with a mild tune, probably around 520hp. Haven't had them side by side yet but it is coming and there will be video....

 

[Jimmy N.]

All weather ersatz "Cats".

 

[ChargerChallenger]