The truck's tale

Remember this firetruck? I posted a photo of it a while back as a neighborhood curiosity.

Finally ran into the guy who owns it. In Germany, firetrucks have to be decommissioned after x number of years, no matter what kind of shape they're in, so these things turn up on the market once in a while, he told me.

(Oops, a discovery: hitting CTRL-S in Blogger automatically publishes your post! Even if you're not done with it!)

So anyway, this guy found the truck online and bought it for $6,000, then paid another $2,500 to get it shipped to Baltimore, then drove it across the country until it blew a valve in Kansas, then had it towed the rest of the way. It's a 1978 truck, with 23,000 miles on it.

He was going to use it as a workshop (he said it's quite roomy inside), but now he's thinking of turning it into party central for ski and snowboard events. He's a former pro boarder and former DJ, so he's thinking of mounting some giant speakers on top and getting corporate sponsorships. He's got one already from Never Summer boards, and is looking at Red Bull and the like.

He also wants to put it on a Unimog drive train (that's one pictured at right), which will raise it up and make it a better vehicle for mountaineering.

"Duuuude!"