Pierce Trucks a Legendary Worldwide Fire Fighting Heavy Equipment Manufacturer and Supplier.

Best firefighter heavy equipment manufacturer

In 1913 the Pierce Auto Body Works company was founded in by Humphrey Pierce and his son Dudley as the Pierce Auto Body Works Inc. Staying mindful of what they did best they continued on building custom truck bodies for the Ford Model T.

Their success caused them to enlarge the facilities in 1917-1918

From the 1960s to the early 1980s, Pierce was predominately known for building custom bodies on commercial and other manufacturer’s custom chassis. They were still considered an OEM supplier.

Although the Arrow name was used for its first custom chassis which debuted in 1979, the company has no affiliation with

George N. Pierce’s famous Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company of Buffalo, New York, which operated from 1901 to 1938. However, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company coincidentally supplied 8- and 12-cylinder engines to Seagrave for use in their fire apparatus. These engines continued to be made even after Pierce-Arrow ceased operation in 1938. Seagrave continued to deliver fire apparatus with the “Pierce-Arrow” V-12 until 1970.

Throughout the years, Pierce has had partnerships with various other manufacturers, notably when it came to aerial devices (it now engineers and builds all its own aerial devices in-house). Such aerial manufacturers included Snorkel, Pitman, Aerial Innovations (AI), Ladder Towers Incorporated (LTI), Smeal, Bronto Skylift and Nova Quintech (whose assets Pierce/Oshkosh acquired in 1997). In addition to its main facilities in Wisconsin, it also has facilities in Bradenton, Florida. The Florida facility is a manufacturing site for the custom Saber chassis and Responder line of apparatus. Currently (December 4, 2017) Pierce is the largest manufacturer of firefighting apparatus. End-users are represented across a larger majority of the planet, including China. The single largest municipal fleet of Pierce Manufacturing apparatus is located within the 407 square miles of Fairfax County, Virginia. (Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department)