Mack Trucks Inc. Fire Apparatus Division

Mack Trucks' Fire Apparatus Division was an American fire apparatus builder between 1911 and 1984. For much of its history, it operated from Allentown, Pennsylvania, but between 1941 and 1951, it was located in Long Island City, New York.

The Fire Apparatus Division operated as part of well-known Mack Trucks Inc., founded in 1900.

History
John (Jack) Mack started working in the wagon-building business in 1890, purchasing the company with his brother three years later. Jack built his first motorized vehicle (a bus) in 1901 and started building trucks shortly after. The company relocated from Brooklyn, New York to Allentown in 1905.

The first recorded use of a Mack truck as fire apparatus occurred in 1909, when the Allentown Fire Department used a Mack tractor with a horse-drawn aerial truck. Other fire departments also used Mack chassis for hose trucks, city service hook & ladder trucks and pumpers. The company began building fire apparatus in 1914 with the Mack AB, and entered the field in earnest in 1919 with the Mack AC. Production continued through the following decades on a variety of chassis - the AP, B, A, E and L-series. Civilian fire truck production stopped for the Second World War and resumed in 1946. The well-known B-series followed in the 1950s. In 1956, Mack acquired the C.D. Beck company, an Ohio bus manufacturer. Beck had been building fire apparatus under contract for Ahrens-Fox, and had just started building a new cab-forward pumper chassis. Mack started building and marketing this chassis as the C-series, and it was an immediate success. The flat-fronted MB chassis followed in 1963 and the CF in 1967. The CF and R series replaced the C and B series respectively. During the 1970s, Mack started to sell chassis to other fire apparatus manufacturers. The MC and MR series were introduced in 1978, and the Renault-built MS Midliner in 1981.

In 1983, Mack sent a letter to its sales force and distributors directing them to stop accepting orders for complete fire apparatus. Full apparatus production wound down in 1984, and the CF was discontinued in 1990. That same year, Mack became a division of Renault, which had been buying stakes in Mack since the 1970s.

Mack chassis are still used for fire apparatus, with bodies built by other manufacturers. The Granite conventional series is still used, while the MB/MR has morphed into the cabover TerraPro.

Chassis models

 * Mack B-Series
 * Mack C-Series
 * Mack CF-Series
 * Mack MB-Series
 * Mack MC-Series