When David Lewis brought his newly fabricated hauler to Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tennessee, last week, it turned heads. He built it out of a former fire truck, a 1961 Ford C-800. Lewis uses it to carry the street stock he fields for David Clark.
“I was going to take a school bus and make a ramp truck out of it,” said Lewis, who understands a thing or two about fabrication as owner of SuperDave’s Paint & Body in Maryville, Tennessee. “Then I found [the fire truck] on the internet. I told my wife, [Jannifer,] ‘I’m going to go look at that.’ She said, ‘What in the world are you going to do with that fire truck?’ I said, ‘I have a vision.’”
The seller just wanted $3,800 for the truck. It had only 14,000 miles. Lewis added that many old fire trucks have little mileage on them, and they’re selling for not much money.
“It didn’t run,” said Lewis of the fire truck he found. “It had new tires on it — that was the only good thing on it.”
However, its running condition didn’t matter so much.
“I brought it home, and [my wife] and my brother both said, ‘What in the world are you going to do with that?’” Lewis said. “I said, ‘I had a vision.’”
Lewis began cutting. A lot of cutting. To the tune of 2,700 pounds of steel cutting.
When it came to the mechanical bits, he had to install a new carburetor, tune up the Ford 332-cubic-inch Y-block engine, replace brakes and brake lines, and fix odds and ends here and there — the typical kind of work when it comes to reviving a vehicle that’s been sitting for a while.
Lewis then fabricated the ramp truck part, which includes adding a tire rack and an observation deck. As a final touch, the hauler carries an actual fire ax on the front.
In case you were wondering, the sirens still work, and Lewis will repair the emergency lights atop the cab.
In total, Lewis spent about eight months turning the Ford C-800 from a fire truck into a hauler.
“I’ve probably got $14,000 to $15,000 tied up in it,” said Lewis. “But I’ve got hundreds of hours [into it].”
David Lewis admitted that he prefers an enclosed trailer, as it is nice for keeping your equipment dry, but the fire truck hauler offers something an enclosed trailer can’t.
“When a car is in an enclosed [trailer], you don’t know what it is,” Lewis said. “It’s cool piece. Kids like it. I enjoy it. Everybody else enjoys it.”
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
