Ahrens-Fox Piston Pumper, 1937

A 1937 Ahrens-Fox at the Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin, California, an engine that served Lansford, Pennsylvania, from 1937 until 1982. The polished ball above the front bumper is the giveaway: an air chamber that smoothed out the pulses from the piston pump mounted ahead of the radiator. Ahrens-Fox of Cincinnati built these front-pump engines from the 1910s into the 1950s, and no other American fire engine looks quite like one, which is why collectors chase them.