A fire truck on the cover of one of the first issues of Feuerwehr Magazin (no idea which year) caught my eye. Enthusiastic about this vehicle, I wrote to the chief of the Burnsville FD in the US state of Minnesota. Weeks later I received a drawing and 24 color photos of this Peterbilt. Since Revell had a 359 tractor in its range at the time, I used it for the conversion into the fire truck.
With the help of the drawing and the 24 photos, I started building a model of Engine 585 in 1985, based on the chassis of a Peterbilt 359. Rather than describe everything again here, read the 6-page build report published in the June 1987 issue of Modell Magazin. The build took 18 months, and since I was out driving a truck all week, I could only work on the model at weekends. I had to make many chrome parts from scratch, for example the bumper. A company in Lüdenscheid was kind enough to chrome-plate all the parts for me, still using the dipping process at that time. Mind you, this model is a one-off and still belonged to me in 1987. But the story goes on.
My build reports in Modell Magazin were also seen and read by the model manufacturer Revell in Bünde, who contacted me, along with several other model builders, and invited us to a so-called "expert meeting". It took place three years in a row, in 1987, 1988 and 1989. At the last meeting I had my Peterbilt fire truck with me, but the model was still in the trunk of my car. When the subject of proposals for new models came up, I suggested an American fire truck based on the existing Peterbilt 359. Since nobody present could imagine such a model, I fetched mine from the car and put it on the huge table in the conference room. What I did not expect at all was the applause I got for it. When the meeting ended in the late afternoon and we all left, I drove home too, but without my Peterbilt, because Revell had bought it from me. The company wanted to release it as a kit.
- Row 1
- Image 1: Making all the parts for the tool shop; the dimensions were taken over from the CAD draftsman,
- Image 2: Parts of the fire truck body, handmade,
- Image 3: Doors of the crew cab,
- Image 4: The first test shot from the fire truck tool,
- Row 2
- Image 1: Assembly and testing of all the new fire truck parts on a Peterbilt chassis,
- Image 2: The first test model next to my prototype, for comparison,
- Image 3: Here I got to draw the first assembly instructions, for my fire truck,
- Image 4: One of many finished kits,
- Image 5: A picture from production shows hundreds of fire truck kits.
