King-Seagrave Ltd.

King-Seagrave Ltd. was a fire apparatus manufacturer in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.

History
King-Seagrave was created in 1956, following the bankruptcy of Bickle-Seagrave. Vernon B. King, nephew of the Bickle brothers, purchased the manufacturing rights to Bickle and resumed production a few months after the bankruptcy. King had previously worked for Bickle-Seagrave in the 1920s and later created his own successful truck body and trailer business in Woodstock. Bickle was one of the largest fire apparatus manufacturers in Canada and King-Seagrave soon picked up where its predeccesor left off.

Like Bickle, King represented Seagrave in Canada and used Seagrave aerial assemblies and custom chassis. This exclusive arrangement continued until Seagrave was purchased by FWD in the early seventies. Despite the change, the company name remained the same, although truck nameplates read "King" instead of "King-Seagrave."

In 1982, King-Seagrave went into receivership and production ceased. the company was reorganized as King-Seagrave (1982) Ltd. and continued to build apparatus for two more years. King went into receivership again in 1984 and production ceased in 1985.

The Woodstock plant and assets were purchased by Belgian Standard in 1985, which later became Amertek. Amertek shut down its fire truck operations in 1993.

Products
King-Seagrave built a full-line of apparatus and delivered their products to fire departments across Canada. A small number of trucks were delivered to foreign countries - there were a few deliveries to the United States and some trucks were delivered to other countries (notably Nicaragua) as foreign aid through the Government of Canada. Overall, approximately 1500 trucks were delivered.

As noted, King held the rights for Seagrave in Canada and used Seagrave aerial ladders and custom chassis. King also had an agreement with Snorkel, allowing them to build trucks using Snorkel platforms and Telesqurt booms. Several trucks were built with these components. King had a similar agreement with Strato-Tower of Ohio and built a number of trucks using the Strato-Tower elevating platform in the 1960s.

King-Seagrave also designed and built its own custom chassis, the CM-1 in the mid-1980s. Twelve CM-1 trucks were delivered to fire departments across Canada and the design formed the basis of Amertek's crash trucks.