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It was then used extensively on tours and rallies within the UK and throughout Europe before returning to South East England for further restoration. The impressive vehicle on offer today was originally imported into the UK in the mid 1980's whereupon it was converted into the speedster configuration you see today. With it came the oldest surviving LaFrance car, a 1911 four cylinder, 50hp Roadster and 14 fully restored American LaFrance Fire Trucks which are all now housed in the new LaFrance Museum in Cleveland, North Carolina. Mercedes-Benz, through their subsidiary Freightliner Corp, purchased the American LaFrance Company in its entirety from the Figgie International Company. These were all in the style that we see this vehicle in today, albeit with an assortment of configurations. This resulted in Type 75-12-10 & 38 model vehicles being manufactured with approximately 5,000 built until around 1925. In 1910 Simplex contracted LaFrance to design for them a 50hp, four cylinder engine and later the following year, an American LaFrance four cylinder, 50hp Roadster was entered in the one mile dirt track race at the Syracuse New York State Fair. In 1909, Simplex chain-drive rolling chassis were purchased and shipped to the new LaFrance factory in Elmira, New York where new bodies were fitted and badged as LaFrance. 1906 saw the experiment of shaft drive cars although this was not pursued.
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The price was set at $5,000 and all the vehicles were sold exclusively by Sidney Bowman of New York City. We are advised that import duties have been paid.In 1871, Truckson LaFrance, whose family trade was iron working, started building rotary steam engines and in 1903, built approximately 25 chain drive cars with tube coil radiators mounted below the front of the frame, 'rear-entrance tonneau' seating, all righthand drive. Reported as starting, running, driving and stopping well, it is offered in fundamentally sound mechanical condition but in need of restoration, and is sold strictly as viewed. Not used for many years, the vehicle was purchased by the present owner at Hershey, USA in 1999 with a view to converting it into an old-style charabanc, a project that was not pursued because of insufficient time. This righthand-drive America LaFrance fire appliance is powered by a 14.5-litre six-cylinder engine driving the rear wheels by a combination of shaft and chain. Long famous for its high quality machines with their distinctive dual chain final drive, American-La France was the most widely recognised name in the industry. The positive-displacement rotary gear pumps were of the company's own design.
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Steam-powered appliances continued to be made until 1914, but seven years previously the firm had motorised its first apparatus using four-cylinder T-head engines designed by New York neighbours Simplex. In 1901 the firm merged with the American Fire Engine Company (itself formed by the amalgamation of four smaller enterprises), becoming American LaFrance. Based in Elmira, New York, the LaFrance Fire Engine Company was originally famous as a manufacturer of steam-powered fire pumpers, some 500-or-so of which has been sold by 1900. Although the American-La France company built a handful of automobiles prior to WWI, its main business was always the building and selling of fire trucks.