Disclaimer: I'm a sales rep for a Smeal dealer. That being said, this is a very interesting deal indeed. I only found out about this last night so there is much that is still unknown. I think facility and infrastructure wise everything will stay. The Spartan ER aerial plant which currently shares a parking lot with the LTC aerial plant will very quickly become one again.
My assumption (I emphasize that this my assumption and nothing more) is that you will see the Spartan ER aerials go away eventually and be replaced with the Smeal aerials and LTC. I don't think many people would argue that Smeal's strong suit is it's aerial line up. About the same time Don Smeal began building modern steel aerials out of structural steel the only other people in the country to do so were the Grove Crane company. Grove, who would become LTI, who would become LTC. RK aerials currently a part of Rosenbauer was started by a former Smeal employee. Prior to about 1993/1994 Smeal was supplying the bulk of the aerial ladders for Pierce. It's no surprise how similar today's Pierce aerials are to Smeal. LTI invented the ladder tower or truly climbable ladder with a platform. Snorkel was one of the originators of an articulating platform. Snorkel's Tele-Squrt has numerous copies out there now. Ferrara aerials? Built by Smeal. The point is, you can trace a hell of a lot of the modern aerial DNA back to Smeal (and now Spartan) in one way or another.
When I look at the pumper line I start to wonder if both the Smeal brand as well as the Spartan ER brand will both continue as they do today. Perhaps you end up with a hybrid taking the best aspects of both and then the marketing gurus figure out what to call it. UST who by the way builds fantastic stainless steel bodies at very competitive prices doesn't have the brand recognition of the others, so maybe it simply becomes the "stainless plant" for the mothership. Just a guess here.
The trend in the industry is definitely towards consolidation. Look at what REV Group now owns. E\-One and KME have an awful lot of overlap so you would think they would probably start to eliminate some things here and there. Then again, these are the same guys that own 8 ambulance brands. Several of which are built in the same building. So it's really hard to say what will happen.
IDEX and Safe Fleet are bothing gobbling up brands of emergency vehicle component manufacturers. It's an interesting time for sure. I think we will see some more moves in the next year or two, although it's anybody's guess who. I think a lot of this is a sign of the industry finally recovering from the Great Recession and everyone now feels like they are in a safe enough place to make their respective moves.
My assumption (I emphasize that this my assumption and nothing more) is that you will see the Spartan ER aerials go away eventually and be replaced with the Smeal aerials and LTC. I don't think many people would argue that Smeal's strong suit is it's aerial line up. About the same time Don Smeal began building modern steel aerials out of structural steel the only other people in the country to do so were the Grove Crane company. Grove, who would become LTI, who would become LTC. RK aerials currently a part of Rosenbauer was started by a former Smeal employee. Prior to about 1993/1994 Smeal was supplying the bulk of the aerial ladders for Pierce. It's no surprise how similar today's Pierce aerials are to Smeal. LTI invented the ladder tower or truly climbable ladder with a platform. Snorkel was one of the originators of an articulating platform. Snorkel's Tele-Squrt has numerous copies out there now. Ferrara aerials? Built by Smeal. The point is, you can trace a hell of a lot of the modern aerial DNA back to Smeal (and now Spartan) in one way or another.
When I look at the pumper line I start to wonder if both the Smeal brand as well as the Spartan ER brand will both continue as they do today. Perhaps you end up with a hybrid taking the best aspects of both and then the marketing gurus figure out what to call it. UST who by the way builds fantastic stainless steel bodies at very competitive prices doesn't have the brand recognition of the others, so maybe it simply becomes the "stainless plant" for the mothership. Just a guess here.
The trend in the industry is definitely towards consolidation. Look at what REV Group now owns. E\-One and KME have an awful lot of overlap so you would think they would probably start to eliminate some things here and there. Then again, these are the same guys that own 8 ambulance brands. Several of which are built in the same building. So it's really hard to say what will happen.
IDEX and Safe Fleet are bothing gobbling up brands of emergency vehicle component manufacturers. It's an interesting time for sure. I think we will see some more moves in the next year or two, although it's anybody's guess who. I think a lot of this is a sign of the industry finally recovering from the Great Recession and everyone now feels like they are in a safe enough place to make their respective moves.
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