American LaFrance Closing

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The sad reality is that the last "real" American LaFrance fire apparatus were made in Elmira, NY. Everything that came after that involved a compromise or cheapening of the product. In it's last Elmira years ALF seemed to frequently price itself out of the lucrative competitive bid market and the factory (along with the rest of the city of Elmira) experienced a devastating flood, from which they never truly required. As the American LaFrance name began it's downward spiral through different parent companies, quality and reputation suffered. While the introduction of the American LaFrance Eagle chassis brought forth a very handsome truck under what seemed like a beneficial Daimler-Chrysler-Freightliner corporate umbrella, customer service was poor and again, reliability was spotty. The smell of failure and desperation was continually in the air over the last few years, and the end was inevitable.


I agree that it will be interesting to see what becomes of the LTI and Snorkel/TeleSqurt product lines. They would certainly seem to be saleable commodities, and would make valuable additions to many manufacturer's lines. Time will tell, I suppose. In any case, it's a sad end to a once-proud name. Hopefully this time it can rest in peace.